deadly
Americanadjective
-
causing or tending to cause death; fatal; lethal.
a deadly poison.
-
aiming to kill or destroy; implacable.
a deadly enemy.
-
like death.
a deadly pallor.
-
excruciatingly boring.
The dinner party was absolutely deadly.
-
deadly haste.
-
extremely accurate.
Annie Oakley was a deadly shot.
adverb
-
in a manner resembling or suggesting death.
deadly pale.
-
excessively; completely.
deadly dull.
adjective
-
likely to cause death
deadly poison
deadly combat
-
informal extremely boring
adverb
Related Words
See fatal.
Other Word Forms
- deadliness noun
- nondeadly adjective
Etymology
Origin of deadly
First recorded before 900; Middle English deedli(ch), Old English dēadlīce; dead, -ly
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.
But she repeatedly claimed that the ICE agent fired in self-defence and that Good used her vehicle as a "deadly weapon" against agents.
From BBC
It was not the kind of place where she imagined ending up — not after living in the country for 28 years, caring for her daughter and surviving one of California’s deadliest wildfires, the Eaton fire.
From Los Angeles Times
The phrase is cartoonish, but the ideology is deadly serious.
From Salon
Four days on from the disaster, Swiss police announced all 116 people wounded in the deadly fire had now been identified, alongside the 40 fatalities, most of whom were teenagers.
From Barron's
From an emergency-management point of view, these situations can become deadly in about 90 seconds—far outpacing evacuation models.
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.
