dead soldier

American  

noun

Slang.

1. an empty beer, liquor, or wine bottle or empty beer can.

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dead soldier British  

noun

1. informal an empty beer or spirit bottle

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dead soldier Idioms  

1. Also, dead man. An empty liquor, wine, or beer bottle, as in Their trash barrel's full of dead soldiers; they must drink a lot, or That dead man sticking out of your pocket alerted the officer to the fact that you'd been drinking. Dead man has been slang for “empty bottle” since the late 1600s but has been largely replaced by dead soldier, dating from the late 1800s.

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Etymology

Origin of dead soldier

First recorded in 1915–20

Example Sentences

Jibo is a bit of a dead soldier whose commanding officers went out of business.

From Los Angeles Times • Jul. 22, 2023

The name of the dead soldier, the conditions of the injured and details of the accident weren’t immediately released.

From Seattle Times • Jul. 21, 2023

"History will certainly preserve the names of those who tried to keep silent about the trouble, and those who tried to blame the dead soldier for everything," he wrote on Telegram.

From BBC • Jan. 3, 2023

One is titled “On the Deck of a Spanish Sailing Ship, 1492”; others are about a dead soldier, a basketball player surrounded by disadvantages, a man imprisoned.

From New York Times • Oct. 20, 2021

I can't grasp the thought of that many dead men but I can look into the face of one dead soldier and know that he had a mother.

From The History of Woman Suffrage, Volume V by Harper, Ida Husted

Related Words

• glass
• jar
• jug
• urn
• vial