dead donkeys

Noun

dead donkey (plural dead donkeys)

1. A rarity.
   • A dead bore is as rare a phenomenon as a dead donkey or a dead attorney.1833, The Dublin University Magazine: A Literary and Political Journal
2. A news item of no real significance, usually of whimsical or sentimental nature, placed at the end of a news bulletin or in a newspaper as filler. A dead donkey can often be removed from the programme or publication if a more significant story needs extra time or space.
   • Swap these ages around to produce a 59-year-old father and a 45-year-old mother and what was previously a hot news story becomes a dead donkey.1994, New Scientist, volume 141, numbers 1907–1912, page 3
3. Something useless on which time or effort is wasted.
   • What, if you like, could be more sensational than the fact that the ancient island of Cythera, " sacred," as Lemrière says, "to the Goddess Venus, who rose, as some suppose, from the sea, near its coasts," has been quite happily governed for three months by an assembly of islanders under the...1917, Robert William Seton-Watson, The New Europe: A Weekly Review of Foreign Politics