dead end
noun
something, as a street or water pipe, that has no exit.
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a dead end.
dead end
1 Americannoun
-
dead ends
plural
-
something, as a street or water pipe, that has no exit.
-
a position that offers no hope of progress; blind alley; cul-de-sac.
His theory led him to a dead end.
dead-end
2
American
[ded-end]
/ ˈdɛdˈɛnd /
adjective
-
terminating in a dead end.
a dead-end street.
-
Also dead-ended. having no possibility for or hope of progress, advancement, etc..
a low-level, dead-end job.
-
leading a life in the slums.
growing up as a tough dead-end kid.
verb (used without object)
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dead-ends,
present (3rd person singular)
-
dead-ended,
past participle, past
-
dead-ending
present participle
dead end
British
noun
-
another name for cul-de-sac
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a situation in which further progress is impossible
-
dead-end. ( as modifier )
a dead-end street
a dead-end job
verb
dead end
Idioms
-
A passage that has no exit, as in This street's a dead end, so turn back . [Late 1800s]
-
An impasse or blind alley, allowing no progress to be made. For example, This job is a dead end; I'll never be able to advance . [c. 1920]
Other Word Forms
Inflected Forms
Nouns
Participles
Conjugated Forms
Present
-
dead-endsimple
-
dead-endssimple
-
have dead-endedperfect
-
has dead-endedperfect
-
am dead-endingprogressive
-
are dead-endingprogressive
-
is dead-endingprogressive
-
have been dead-endingperfect progressive
-
has been dead-endingperfect progressive
Past
-
dead-endedsimple
-
had dead-endedperfect
-
was dead-endingprogressive
-
were dead-endingprogressive
-
had been dead-endingperfect progressive
Future
Etymology
Origin of dead end1
First recorded in 1885–90
Origin of dead-end2
First recorded in 1885–90
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:
Plenty of plans allow one and not the other, which is a dead end.
From MarketWatch ● Sep. 3, 2026
"The first part is like a tube station, with a dead end and a platform, then from the platform smaller tunnels went at right angles."
From BBC ● Jul. 11, 2026
Despite the promising findings, the research reached a dead end because scientists could not determine the molecules' exact three dimensional structures.
From Science Daily ● Jul. 6, 2026
Driven by a growing feeling that 9-to-5 jobs are a dead end, people are turning to social media to test out eccentric moneymaking schemes.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jun. 25, 2026
I looked right to the houses on the street’s dead end.
From "The Darkest Minds" by Alexandra Bracken
One recruit was Derek Allen, a computer programmer who graduated from high school at 16 and dropped out of college, convinced AI-generated code would turn programming into a dead-end job.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 12, 2026
Italian divers who died in the Maldives may have taken the wrong tunnel in a cave and died in a dead-end corridor, the head of the company that recovered their bodies told AFP Thursday.
From Barron's ● May 21, 2026
Tucked away in rural western Maryland, past a dead-end road cut off by railroad tracks, a stream runs cool and clear over a ledge dotted with snails.
From Slate ● Apr. 27, 2026
She’s hardly in a position to do much more than accept what’s going on as a grimmer version of her own dead-end predicament.
From Los Angeles Times ● Mar. 6, 2026
Finally we came to a dead-end wall with vertical steps cut into it.
From "Hollow City" by Ransom Riggs
Page got to work looking for a writer, a process that involved many dead-ends and far too many pitches about, “a local coming out of Louisiana and now she’s a star,” Page said.
From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 15, 2025
However, pharmaceutical companies want to recover their years of research and development costs - and the field has produced a lot of expensive duds and dead-ends.
From BBC ● Aug. 23, 2024
Podcasts such as The Coldest Case in Laramie and Bear Brook detail twists and turns in who-done-it style journalism, exposing dead-ends and biases in investigations that have left possible killers free for decades.
From Slate ● Jun. 4, 2023
Aberg made his own rules: walk the length of every designated neighborhood and its major streets, though short dead-ends and cul de sacs could be skipped.
From Seattle Times ● May 5, 2022
Instead of heading toward The Strand, however, he takes a small turnoff down a dirt road that dead-ends.
From "Middlesex: A Novel" by Jeffrey Eugenides
In Gum Springs, Cox said, her family found a vibrant Black community where the streets dead-ended and residents walked to school or stores, meeting and greeting neighbors along the way.
From Washington Post ● Sep. 12, 2021
Emails and calls to Amazon’s automated systems often dead-ended.
From Seattle Times ● Jun. 15, 2021
The college grad with a geology degree who found himself dead-ended in the oil and gas industry.
From Washington Times ● Oct. 24, 2018
Imagine walking through a maze, for years and years, to find that your path has dead-ended near the exit.
From The Guardian ● Dec. 19, 2017
As they climbed the hill, it became clear that the street was actually a long driveway, which dead-ended into the largest single-family residence that Colin had ever personally laid eyes upon.
From "An Abundance of Katherines" by John Green
And just as she acts on her instructions to “get him out of his shell,” he persuades her to consider why she’ll be dead-ending it in Montauk for the foreseeable future.
From New York Times ● Jun. 21, 2023
Bailey Street passes Mariachi Plaza, where mariachis hang out looking to be hired, before dead-ending at White Memorial hospital.
From Los Angeles Times ● Feb. 7, 2022
The road’s 92-mile route winds up, over and around sheer mountain passes before dead-ending at an old mining community at its westernmost point.
From Washington Post ● Oct. 15, 2021
Meticulously pruned, terraced chardonnay vines dominated the full vista, dead-ending at the slopes of Mont Blanc off to the north.
From New York Times ● Sep. 30, 2015
Mami pushed me into the plane, down a long aisle lined with seats dead-ending against a wall—my first glimpse of what New York would be like.
From "When I Was Puerto Rican" by Esmeralda Santiago
Definitions 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.
