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
Olga showed the girls how to deadhead roses and immediately delved into their lives.
From Los Angeles Times ● Dec. 14, 2022
From here it’s a 10-minute float to camp, but the guides give us the option to hike while they deadhead the rafts.
From Washington Post ● Oct. 7, 2022
The main flower bed is positioned near the house to allow her to water plants and deadhead roses with ease.
From New York Times ● Sep. 2, 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
McCluhan, a Deadhead bassist with an appreciation for jazz and jamming, would join them as well.
From New York Times ● Feb. 24, 2023
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
The Deadhead performances vary in terms of numbers of members, key the song is played in, tempo and talent.
From Fox News ● Apr. 5, 2019
What’s been missing is a tale about what happened once the Deadhead sticker was plastered on the Cadillac, to steal a line from Don Henley’s “Boys of Summer.”
From Washington Post ● Jun. 26, 2018
The association with the method is unfortunate, because unlike the large psychedelic Deadhead patterns and colors, bandini tie-dyes are delicate and intricate.
From "Love, Hate & Other Filters" by Samira Ahmed
His supporters — many of them men who had hopped from debate to debate like Deadheads — laughed and whooped it up, despite the admonishments of Father Busse and church volunteers.
From Los Angeles Times ● Oct. 12, 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
This official-as-it-gets Grateful Dead offshoot — featuring heyday members Bob Weir, Mickey Hart and Bill Kreutzmann with a surprisingly well-received John Mayer — is calling it quits after satisfying grateful Deadheads for seven years.
From Seattle Times ● Dec. 28, 2022
As they kept walking, he focused his attention on the other side of the Glade, the section Alby had called the Deadheads.
From "The Maze Runner" by James Dashner
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.
