dead center

American  

[ded sen-ter] / ˈdɛd ˈsɛn tər /

adverb

1. in or at the exact midpoint.

   The town is located dead center between Dallas and Houston.

   She took a single shot and hit the cardboard figure dead center.

---

noun

1. the exact center or midpoint.

   I live in the dead center of the capitol, and parking is a nightmare.

   I hate when people leave their shopping cart in the dead center of the aisle.

2. Machinery.

   1. Also called dead point.  (in a reciprocating engine) either of two positions at which the crank cannot be turned by the connecting rod, occurring at each end of a stroke when the crank and connecting rod are in the same line.

   2. a tapered rod, mounted in the tailstock spindle of a lathe, upon which the work to be turned is placed.

Other Word Forms

Derived Forms

• dead-center
  adjective

Etymology

Origin of dead center

First recorded in 1870–75

Example Sentences

The piston faces have small, crescent-shaped reliefs into which the valves extend near the top dead center.

From The Wall Street Journal • Jan. 23, 2026

In the bottom of the sixth, Seattle center fielder Julio Rodríguez robbed Taylor of a two-run home run to dead center field.

From Los Angeles Times • Jun. 7, 2025

"RoboCop" endures and we are still talking about it almost four decades later because of the social and political issues it confronted, right there, dead center in the film.

From Salon • Apr. 19, 2025

Planted dead center on the stage in “This House Is Not a Home,” a slippery, ever-shifting work by Nile Harris, is a house — a bounce house.

From New York Times • Jan. 5, 2024

Chances were that, fog and all, he’d made his drift dead center by happenstance; he’d had the luck he’d prayed for earlier.

From "Snow Falling on Cedars: A Novel" by David Guterson

Related Words

• center
• omphalos