cul-de-sacs

Noun

cul-de-sac (plural cul-de-sacs or culs-de-sac)

1. A blind alley or dead end street.
   • Before we had gone fifty yards we perceived that all hopes of getting further up the stream in the whale-boat were at an end, for not two hundred yards above where we had stopped were a succession of shallows and mudbanks, with not six inches of water over them. It was a watery cul de sac.1886 October – 1887 January, H[enry] Rider Haggard, She: A History of Adventure, London: Longmans, Green, and Co., published 1887, →OCLC
2. A circular area at the end of a dead end street to allow cars to turn around, designed so children can play on the street, with little or no through-traffic.
   • And in suburbs known for new development, preservationists are often battling a general perception that there is nothing historic or worth saving among the cul-de-sacs.2010 January 17, Cara Buckley, “A Suburban Treasure, Left to Die”, in New York Times, page Section MB; Column 0; Metropolitan Desk; Pg. 1
3. (figuratively) An impasse.
   • Physics seems, in fact, to have got itself into a cul-de-sac, obsessing over theories so mathematically abstruse that nobody even knows how to test them.2005 February 14, National Review
4. A sacklike cavity, a tube open at one end only.