dead lift
Americannoun
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a direct lifting without any mechanical assistance.
-
a situation that requires all one's strength or ingenuity.
Other Word Forms
Noun Inflected Forms
Etymology
Origin of dead lift
First recorded in 1545–55
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.
Unless James can juke Father Time and pull off another odds-defying dead lift for the ages.
From Los Angeles Times • Apr. 17, 2026
I have friends who choke down Greek yogurt by the bucketful, who eat handfuls of grilled chicken at a time, who dead lift their own body weight.
From The Wall Street Journal • Feb. 27, 2026
There, she hoisted four 100- to 150-pound sandbags onto her shoulders after completing six reps of a 315-pound dead lift.
From Salon • Jul. 15, 2024
Those six are a dead lift, power throw, pushups, plank, run and a combination sprint/drag/carry.
From Seattle Times • Mar. 23, 2022
He represents him as endeavoring earnestly and long to feel the force of obligation, and as toiling sedulously to school himself into virtue, by the bare power, by the dead lift, of duty.
From Sermons to the Natural Man by Shedd, William G. T. (William Greenough Thayer)
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.
