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half-dead

British  

adjective

  1. informal very tired

"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

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.

A cull of these half-dead businesses is freeing up capital and labor for more entrepreneurial, productive firms, while also allowing those healthier companies to improve their own profitability.

From The Wall Street Journal • Jan. 22, 2026

Choi has said of the story, and her restraint makes this book about 10-year-old Louisa, who is found half-dead on a beach, and her missing father.

From Los Angeles Times • May 14, 2025

"I was taken from there half-dead when our forces liberated this place."

From BBC • Sep. 20, 2022

One survived two notorious concentration camps, Auschwitz and Bergen-Belsen, and was discovered by British troops on a pile of bodies, half-dead with typhus.

From New York Times • May 4, 2020

But he resolved he would not die, even with a half-dead body, because he wanted to come home again.

From "Sounder" by William H. Armstrong