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.
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.
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.
a dull unenterprising person
a person who uses a free ticket, as for a train, the theatre, etc
a train, etc, travelling empty
a totally or partially submerged log floating in a lake, etc
(tr) to cut off withered flowers from (a plant)
(intr) to drive an empty bus, train, etc
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
SemiCab says its technology reduced so-called deadhead miles by 70%.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Feb. 13, 2026
“The reality is so many pilots deadhead on flights,” Nance said.
From Washington Post ● Mar. 22, 2023
Olga showed the girls how to deadhead roses and immediately delved into their lives.
From Los Angeles Times ● Dec. 14, 2022
Support taller plants with stakes and deadhead frequently to promote new flowering.
From Seattle Times ● Sep. 27, 2021
For the same deadhead reason people climb mountains—it was there and I wanted to try it.
From "Hole in My Life" by Jack Gantos
Basketball great Bill Walton, who died Monday at age 71, was a noted Deadhead who attended hundreds of Grateful Dead shows and was friends with members of the band.
From Los Angeles Times ● May 27, 2024
Don’t tell my Deadhead friends, but I favor that rule and the whole off-gridness of this trip.
From Washington Post ● Nov. 19, 2020
Ullman certainly classifies as a Deadhead — he saw the band with Jerry Garcia 115 times before Garcia’s death in 1995.
From Fox News ● Mar. 31, 2020
The things I feared were frivolous during my young Deadhead days, I began to understand in an entirely different way.
From Salon ● Jun. 21, 2019
He skirted the edge of the Glade, then, breaking into a run, he headed for his place of seclusion behind the Deadhead forest.
From "The Maze Runner" by James Dashner
Deadheads traded amateur recordings of Dead concerts in a practice endorsed by the band.
From Los Angeles Times ● Oct. 25, 2024
Deadheads took to the road in the 1970s to pursue the Grateful Dead from city to city.
From Seattle Times ● May 7, 2024
But the band ended up generating tremendous interest from new audiences, too, becoming a bridge between Deadheads then and now.
From New York Times ● Aug. 22, 2023
By the time you went to your third concert -- typical among Deadheads -- you would start recognizing and interacting with this same collection of familiar strangers and this could facilitate positive interactions.
From Salon ● Jan. 28, 2023
I hung around the Deadheads because I was scared alone.
From "Middlesex: A Novel" by Jeffrey Eugenides
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Get a wordDefinitions 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.
