deadbeat

[ ded-beet ]

noun

1. Informal. a person who deliberately avoids paying debts or neglects responsibilities.
2. Informal. a loafer; sponger.

adjective

1. Informal. not paying one's debts or neglecting one's responsibilities:

   a deadbeat parent who won't pay for college;

   deadbeat borrowers.

2. Horology. noting any of various timepiece escapements that act without recoil of the locking parts from the shock of contact.
3. Electricity. (of the indicator of an electric meter and the like) coming to a stop with little or no oscillation.

deadbeat

/ ˈdɛdˌbiːt /

noun

1. informal.
   a lazy or socially undesirable person
2. 1. a person who makes a habit of avoiding or evading his or her responsibilities or debts
   2. ( as modifier )

      a deadbeat dad

3. a high grade escapement used in pendulum clocks
4. modifier (of a clock escapement) having a beat without any recoil
5. modifier physics
   1. (of a system) returning to an equilibrium position with little or no oscillation
   2. (of an instrument or indicator) indicating a true reading without oscillation

Word History and Origins

Origin of deadbeat¹

First recorded in 1760–70; dead + beat

Example Sentences

Neither Wall Street nor foreign markets like to see the United States as a deadbeat borrower, especially when the alternative global economic giant is China.

From Time

It was during her work presenting debt research to Congress that she overheard a man in a Senate office ranting about “deadbeats” who had babies with multiple women and then avoided child support.

From Time

Websites solicit lurid, unverified complaints about supposed cheaters, sexual predators, deadbeats and scammers.

From Search Engine Land

The claims have led one tabloid to brand Jenner a “deadbeat daughter.”

From The Daily Beast

No, they say, instead of their intoxicated deadbeat boyfriend, they want someone…someone like Putin.

From The Daily Beast

Anyway the phrase "deadbeat nation" is going to have a lot more resonance coming out of Obama's mouth than in Rubio's letter.

From The Daily Beast

It caught a lot of people's ears just now when Obama said, "We are not a deadbeat nation."

From The Daily Beast

When marriages fail, the deadbeat dad is the norm in American society, not the exception.

From The Daily Beast

Then he makes off with another deadbeat, and starts a kind of show outside the town—this was in Port Arthur, mind.

From Project Gutenberg

The bartender, accepting the situation as generally inclusive, put his hands up along with his deadbeat patrons.

From Project Gutenberg

The sparrow was deadbeat, and was travelling slowly to the north and west on a zigzag course, about two hundred feet high.

From Project Gutenberg

I knew you looked a deadbeat, but Id no idea I was quite so bad, he said.

From Project Gutenberg