cul-de-sac
Americannoun
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a street, lane, etc., closed at one end; blind alley; dead-end street.
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any situation in which further progress is impossible.
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the hemming in of a military force on all sides except behind.
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Anatomy. a saclike cavity, tube, or the like, open only at one end, as the cecum.
noun
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a road with one end blocked off; dead end
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an inescapable position
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any tube-shaped bodily cavity or pouch closed at one end, such as the caecum
Other Word Forms
Noun Inflected Forms
Etymology
Origin of cul-de-sac
1730–40; < French: literally, bottom of the sack
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:
The annual block party on his own cul-de-sac never came back after Covid.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 27, 2026
Dharmesh Patel was a respected radiologist who appeared to live an idyllic family life in a peaceful Pasadena cul-de-sac.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jul. 8, 2026
“Pristine, completely remodeled, two-story warm Contemporary done with great taste and quality at the end of a quiet, flat cul-de-sac street in a desirable Brentwood Hills location,” the description begins.
From MarketWatch ● Jul. 7, 2026
It had been a routine day doing ground work for a cul-de-sac in a quiet part of central Nottinghamshire in March 1966, with builders and machine operators looking forward to going home.
From BBC ● Apr. 25, 2026
I circled the cul-de-sac and raced back past Monica’s house.
From "The Fault in Our Stars" by John Green
Your relative might lose his train of thought; another person’s relative might get stuck in verbal cul-de-sacs of nonsense.
From Salon ● Jul. 19, 2024
The mythical Silicon Valley was in reality a bunch of office parks and cul-de-sacs where subdivision-grade homes went for $2 million.
From New York Times ● Jan. 19, 2024
We laughed at the slips of tongue that made space for memories of Midtown Lanes and cul-de-sacs off the 105.
From Los Angeles Times ● Sep. 29, 2023
His ideas are visible nationwide, residing in meticulously planned cul-de-sacs, in spacious lawns, and in every pitched battle over efforts to build more-inclusive neighborhoods.
From Slate ● Aug. 16, 2023
The guests began to arrive, many with tales of how they'd gotten lost on the way; the suburbs were dark and intricate like mazes with their courts and cul-de-sacs.
From "How the García Girls Lost Their Accents" by Julia Alvarez
Today, too many American children cannot safely leave their culs-de-sac.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jun. 2, 2026
Better, then, to make shows for television, a medium that is more comfortable with loose ends and narrative culs-de-sac, where he can tell a “continuing story”.
From The Guardian ● Jun. 23, 2018
Martz saw FlexBus as the key to transforming Altamonte, a loose agglomeration of palm tree-lined strip malls and culs-de-sac a few miles north of Orlando, into a thriving and walkable destination.
From The Verge ● Sep. 1, 2016
For some reason, he has always favored culs-de-sac, so he hopes you live on one, someday, a neat little cutoff that surprises the city's motions with a pause.
From Time Magazine Archive
They drive until it grows dark, without destination in mind, past hidden ponds and graveyards, culs-de-sac and dead ends.
From "The Namesake" by Jhumpa Lahiri
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.
