deadlock
Americannoun
-
deadlocks
plural
-
a state in which progress is impossible, as in a dispute, produced by the counteraction of opposing forces; standstill; stalemate.
The union and management reached a deadlock over fringe benefits.
-
a maximum-security cell for the solitary confinement of a prisoner.
verb (used with or without object)
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deadlocks,
present (3rd person singular)
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deadlocked,
past participle, past
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deadlocking
present participle
noun
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a state of affairs in which further action between two opposing forces is impossible; stalemate
-
a tie between opposite sides in a contest
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a lock having a bolt that can be opened only with a key
verb
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Nouns
Participles
Conjugated Forms
Present
-
deadlocksimple
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deadlockssimple
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have deadlockedperfect
-
has deadlockedperfect
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am deadlockingprogressive
-
are deadlockingprogressive
-
is deadlockingprogressive
-
have been deadlockingperfect progressive
-
has been deadlockingperfect progressive
Past
-
deadlockedsimple
-
had deadlockedperfect
-
was deadlockingprogressive
-
were deadlockingprogressive
-
had been deadlockingperfect progressive
Future
Etymology
Origin of deadlock
Explanation
Use the noun deadlock to describe a standstill, as when two people or sides cannot move beyond a disagreement. Deadlock can also mean a game that results in an unbreakable tie or a stalemate, like when you are in a five-hour thumb-wrestling match with no winner. You can easily remember the meaning of this compound word, by thinking about its two word parts — dead + lock. The first appearance of deadlock was in The Critic, a play by Richard Brinsley Sheridan: “I have them all at a deadlock, for every one of them is afraid to let go first.”
Vocabulary lists containing deadlock
Never Let Me Go
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Vocabulary from Vladimir Putin's Speech on Crimea
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The Egypt Game
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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.
See Examples For:
It is the twelfth day of deadlock between residents of the Garvaghy Road and the local district lodge of the Orange Order over the proposed march in Portadown, County Armagh.
From BBC ● Oct. 8, 2026
Wales rarely looked like scoring against Denmark, who came close to breaking the deadlock on a couple of occasions before Hjolund's 75th-minute winner.
From BBC ● Oct. 4, 2026
The exchanges of fire, which began with US raids last week, come amid a deadlock in the six-month conflict.
From Barron's ● Sep. 7, 2026
On Friday, the judge in the Lindsay Clancy case declared a mistrial after a week of jury deadlock.
From Slate ● Sep. 5, 2026
The effectiveness of machine guns as defensive weapons kept both sides from achieving a breakthrough and helped prolong the deadlock of trench warfare that immobilized the Western Front.
From "The War to End All Wars: World War I" by Russell Freedman
A hung jury would result in a mistrial, meaning prosecutors would face a decision on whether to retry any officers that the jury deadlocks on.
From Seattle Times ● Dec. 20, 2023
And the agency’s board itself often deadlocks on matters of campaign finance enforcement.
From Washington Times ● Dec. 18, 2023
The mechanism was written into the constitution in 2008 as a tool to end deadlocks between the presidency and the legislature.
From New York Times ● May 17, 2023
Maryland lost its only games against Iowa and Rutgers, so those are deadlocks to be avoided.
From Washington Post ● Mar. 3, 2023
Another plan, which evades the pressure of local interests while allowing district representation, also avoids the friction and deadlocks which result from government by a group of representatives of sharply opposed parties or principles.
From Problems of Conduct by Durant Drake
Both main crude contracts edged up to extend the previous day's rally with Washington and Tehran deadlocked on ending the crisis and unable to reopen the Strait of Hormuz.
From Barron's ● Oct. 2, 2026
The judge declared a mistrial after a Massachusetts jury deadlocked after seven days of deliberations.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Sep. 4, 2026
At this writing, the jury does not appear close to a verdict in the Clancy case, and may well be deadlocked.
From Salon ● Sep. 2, 2026
On Tuesday, audible gasps could be heard in the courtroom as Judge William Sullivan read out a note from the jury indicating that it was deadlocked.
From BBC ● Sep. 1, 2026
Noon finds them picking their way through deadlocked traffic on a new motorway near Vaucresson, a full ten miles west of their apartment, as far from home as Marie-Laure has ever been.
From "All the Light We Cannot See" by Anthony Doerr
But the second pathway makes it complicated, because there are 17 deadlocking nations in pots one, two and three.
From BBC ● Dec. 4, 2025
The case ended embarrassingly for the Justice Department, with the jury deadlocking on five of the six felony counts and acquitting him on the last one.
From Washington Times ● Jul. 4, 2023
Jurors deliberated for several days, deadlocking more than once, prompting the judge to urge them to continue deliberating to reach a unanimous verdict.
From Seattle Times ● Mar. 14, 2023
It fell one vote short, deadlocking at 7 to 7.
From Los Angeles Times ● Feb. 22, 2022
One day during afternoon rec, when I was deadlocking all the cells, he called me back to his.
From "Newjack: Guarding Sing Sing" by Ted Conover
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.
