deadline
Americannoun
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deadlines
plural
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the time by which something must be finished or submitted; the latest time for finishing something.
a five o'clock deadline.
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a line or limit that must not be passed.
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(formerly) a boundary around a military prison beyond which a prisoner could not venture without risk of being shot by the guards.
noun
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Nouns
Etymology
Origin of deadline
Explanation
A deadline is a date or time when something must be finished. At work and school, most projects have deadlines. If you don’t get your paper in by the deadline, you won’t get a good grade. If you think missing a deadline and getting a low grade is bad, think about how this word came to be: It was a line that went around a prison and if a prisoner crossed it, he could be shot. Now that’s a deadline! A deadline sounds scary, and it does frighten a lot of people — if you don't get a paper in by the deadline, you could lose points or fail. But hey, you’ll live.
Vocabulary lists containing deadline
"LAFFF"
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Employment, List 1
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Journalism Jargon
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Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
See Examples For:
When that deadline drifted quietly by, they set a new target of achieving the goal by 2030 instead.
From BBC ● Nov. 2, 2026
It would even be really silly for the Chargers not to give the market a good shake before the NFL’s Nov. 10 trade deadline.
From Los Angeles Times ● Nov. 2, 2026
But INES, Germany's gas storage industry association, said missing the deadline was a "clear signal that the instruments for ensuring winter preparedness need to be further developed".
From Barron's ● Nov. 2, 2026
But, outside of being born just a week or so apart before or after the 1933 deadline, little separated the Welsh pensioners his team analyzed.
From Slate ● Nov. 1, 2026
So Blackburn extended the deadline two weeks for everybody, and his colleagues also helped some applicants with the maze of financial aid forms.
From "Class Matters" by The New York Times
Some of those rules include governing campaign contribution limits, filing deadlines, public disclosures and fundraising windows.
From Los Angeles Times ● Oct. 31, 2026
Instead, LUPE’s workers and volunteers now focus on letting people know key deadlines are coming up.
From Salon ● Oct. 31, 2026
Welsh parents are currently thinking about the next steps for their children, with application deadlines for secondary school places at the end of this month.
From BBC ● Oct. 15, 2026
When the TPS expiration deadlines approached for other groups, the administration reached a decision within days of a deadline.
From Los Angeles Times ● Oct. 3, 2026
The deadlines were never-ending, and there were times when she wondered if she had chosen the right line of work.
From "The Woman All Spies Fear" by Amy Butler Greenfield
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Get a wordDefinitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
