deadhead
[ded-hed]Informal.
- a person who attends a performance, sports event, etc., or travels on a train, airplane, etc., without having paid for a ticket, especially a person using a complimentary ticket or free pass.
- a train, railroad car, airplane, truck, or other commercial vehicle while operating empty, as when returning to a terminal.
- a stupid or boring person; dullard.
- Metallurgy. excess metal in the riser of a mold.
- a sunken or partially sunken log.
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- to transport (someone) as a deadhead.
- to move (an empty commercial vehicle) along a route.
- Horticulture. to remove faded blooms from (ornamental plants), especially in flower gardens, often to help continued blooming.
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- to act or serve as a deadhead.
- (of a commercial vehicle) to travel without cargo or paying passengers: The train carried coal to Pittsburgh and then deadheaded back to Virginia to pick up another load.
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Origin of deadhead
Dictionary.com Unabridged
Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2018
Examples from the Web for deadhead
Contemporary Examples
“The world perceives cannabis consumers as deadhead, unemployed people—our mission is to change that,” says Defalco.
Ganjapreneurs Flock to Colorado Following Marijuana LegalizationAbby Haglage, Caitlin Dickson
January 29, 2014
Historical Examples
Her family had trained her to deadhead her way through life and she did it.
The Women of TomorrowWilliam Hard
Each one who could recite or do anything did it, and it was appreciated by a deadhead audience, something unusual nowadays.
Adventures and Reminiscences of a VolunteerGeorge T. Ulmer
He travels from Ohio to the gulf, but not in a palace car nor on a deadhead ticket.
The Army Mule and Other War SketchesHenry A. Castle
What we should do, we knew, was to deadhead our horses back into the Park as soon as they had had a little rest.
Tenting To-nightMary Roberts Rinehart
It was said that a deadhead could not borrow a sheet of writing paper in the capitol, nor in a county court-house.
Civil War and Reconstruction in AlabamaWalter L. Fleming
deadhead
- a dull unenterprising person
- a person who uses a free ticket, as for a train, the theatre, etc
- US and Canadian a train, etc, travelling empty
- US and Canadian a totally or partially submerged log floating in a lake, etc
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- (tr) to cut off withered flowers from (a plant)
- (intr) US and Canadian to drive an empty bus, train, etc
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Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 2012 Digital Edition
© William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins
Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012
Word Origin and History for deadhead
Deadhead
n.
by 1974 in sense of "devotee of the rock music band the Grateful Dead;" earlier (with lower-case) "one who rides for free on the railroads" (1866), and "non-paying spectator" (1841).
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Online Etymology Dictionary, © 2010 Douglas Harper