dead-eye
Americanverb (used with object)
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Sports. to make a successful shot or score with perfect aim; to kick, hit, or throw a ball or puck with great accuracy.
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to stare without expression or feeling.
noun
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dead-eyes
plural
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Nouns
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 it was all over, his dead-eye accuracy was recognized by FIFA, which awarded him a shotgun as the best player at the World Cup.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 9, 2026
Finding a way to tamp down Clark’s prodigious output is a tough ask made harder by the fact she has complementary players around her such as center Monika Czinano and dead-eye shooter McKenna Warnock.
From Seattle Times ● Jan. 30, 2022
But whenever the league decides its time for 60 new players to have their dreams realized, the Minnesota Timberwolves are 100%, dead-eye sure that they’ll have the first pick.
From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 21, 2020
He was a dead-eye long-range shooter in pickup basketball.
From Golf Digest ● Jul. 25, 2019
Also, a rope formed into a wreath, with a heart or dead-eye seized in the bight, to which the stay is confined at the lower part.
From The Sailor's Word-Book An Alphabetical Digest of Nautical Terms, including Some More Especially Military and Scientific, but Useful to Seamen; as well as Archaisms of Early Voyagers, etc. by Sir Edward Belcher
Maguire meanwhile dead-eyes one straight at the flag.
From The Guardian ● Sep. 5, 2021
Jimmy dead-eyes him, says, “Goodbye, Chris,” and then does a full sad limo ride off into the sunset, crying about how he and Chris spent four whole days together, and it was definitely love.
From Time ● Jan. 19, 2015
Lerer dead-eyes him and wants to get on with it.
From Forbes ● Apr. 17, 2013
The lower one of each pair of dead-eyes has a wire looped around it, the other end being turned up, and driven into the boat's side, as in Fig.
From Harper's Young People, April 6, 1880 An Illustrated Weekly by Various
The dead-eyes used for the stays have only one hole, which, however, is large enough to receive ten or twelve turns of the laniard—these are generally termed hearts, on account of their shape.
From The Sailor's Word-Book An Alphabetical Digest of Nautical Terms, including Some More Especially Military and Scientific, but Useful to Seamen; as well as Archaisms of Early Voyagers, etc. by Sir Edward Belcher
It’s the first real deviation from the dead-eyed cycle of his daily life since his wife grabbed her car keys and never looked back.
From Salon ● May 30, 2026
I see Corey and Hailey and Colton and Hannah…all staring dead-eyed into their laptops, clutching fistfuls of hair.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Dec. 4, 2025
Its social accounts were promoting “top sellers” on the platform, with usernames like “Isaris-AI” and “Mikonotai,” who reportedly made tens of thousands of dollars through bulk sales of autogenerated, dead-eyed 3D avatars.
From Slate ● May 16, 2024
George Ford, who potted three dead-eyed drop-goals in a 27-10 success, made light of the suspended Owen Farrell's absence.
From BBC ● Sep. 17, 2023
Those nieces of hers had probably stuffed those rat-skeletony, dead-eyed puppets right into the trash the first night they’d gotten them.
From "Pax" by Sara Pennypacker
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.
