cul-de-sac
Americannoun
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culs-de-sac,
plural
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cul-de-sacs
plural
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a street, lane, etc., closed at one end; blind alley; dead-end street.
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any situation in which further progress is impossible.
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the hemming in of a military force on all sides except behind.
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Anatomy. a saclike cavity, tube, or the like, open only at one end, as the cecum.
noun
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a road with one end blocked off; dead end
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an inescapable position
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any tube-shaped bodily cavity or pouch closed at one end, such as the caecum
Other Word Forms
Noun Inflected Forms
Etymology
Origin of cul-de-sac
1730–40; < French: literally, bottom of the sack
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:
The brick wall of the house, in a quiet cul-de-sac of detached homes, was caved in near the front door with smoke marks visible to the upper floor.
From BBC ● Aug. 23, 2026
About half of the homes on their cul-de-sac had children.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 27, 2026
Their five-bedroom home, which is estimated at about $2 million, is on a quiet cul-de-sac with just five other houses in Hertfordshire, England.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jul. 22, 2026
Dharmesh Patel was a respected radiologist who appeared to live an idyllic family life in a peaceful Pasadena cul-de-sac.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jul. 8, 2026
Adria and I rolled our eyes, but we always made sure to stay within the concrete circle of the cul-de-sac.
From "Courage to Soar" by Simone Biles
You haven’t seen how, at every step in creating, tooling and staffing a factory, Astra might be stymied into cul-de-sacs that a human helper would repeatedly have to steer it out of.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Sep. 25, 2026
“Torreyson is one of the most exclusive cul-de-sacs in the Hollywood Hills, surrounded by historically significant architecture, including a neighboring Richard Neutra residence, with several notable figures calling the area home.”
From MarketWatch ● Sep. 8, 2026
They lived on palm-lined cul-de-sacs with names such as Aloha Drive, Kiki Place and Bali Lane.
From Los Angeles Times ● Feb. 3, 2025
Your relative might lose his train of thought; another person’s relative might get stuck in verbal cul-de-sacs of nonsense.
From Salon ● Jul. 19, 2024
I roll through neighbors’ yards, cut through cul-de-sacs, and squeeze through fences— whatever I need to do to keep that little thief in my sight.
From "Kwame Crashes the Underworld" by Craig Kofi Farmer
Today, too many American children cannot safely leave their culs-de-sac.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jun. 2, 2026
Better, then, to make shows for television, a medium that is more comfortable with loose ends and narrative culs-de-sac, where he can tell a “continuing story”.
From The Guardian ● Jun. 23, 2018
Martz saw FlexBus as the key to transforming Altamonte, a loose agglomeration of palm tree-lined strip malls and culs-de-sac a few miles north of Orlando, into a thriving and walkable destination.
From The Verge ● Sep. 1, 2016
For some reason, he has always favored culs-de-sac, so he hopes you live on one, someday, a neat little cutoff that surprises the city's motions with a pause.
From Time Magazine Archive
The boys went through the neighborhood, venturing deep into culs-de-sac and up dark sidewalks to houses that many other kids avoided.
From "Outcasts United: An American Town, a Refugee Team, and One Woman's Quest to Make a Difference" by Warren St. John
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Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
