Word.ws English Dictionary

dead man

dead man noun: a dead man's switch. Also the alternative form of deadman.

Noun

dead man (plural dead men)

  1. A dead man's switch.
  2. (slang) A bottle of alcoholic drink that has been consumed.
  3. (UK, obsolete, slang) An extra loaf stolen from a bakery by a servant who smuggles it into the customer's basket (and sometimes fraudulently charges it to the customer).
    • A crusty loaf at your service — but master gets over-crusty, 'cause last week's bill ar'nt paid. I'm no "snatcher," altho' now and then I make "a dead man." […] We all admit the baker's skill, / To charge a dead man in his bill; […]1833, Francis West, Fun for winter evenings, page 27

Also used as

dead man is also the alternative form of deadman.

Synonyms of dead man

Forms of dead man

pluraldead men

Words formed from dead man

Questions about dead man

What does dead man mean?
Dead man means a dead man's switch.
What part of speech is dead man?
Dead man is a noun.
What is the plural of dead man?
The plural of dead man is dead men.

Words near dead man in the dictionary

  1. dead load
  2. dead loads
  3. dead loss
  4. dead losses
  5. dead mall
  6. dead man
  7. dead man walking
  8. dead man's arm
  9. dead man's brake
  10. dead man's brakes
  11. dead man's fingers

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: dead man (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

Last updated:

Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: En-au-dead man.ogg.

Cite this entry: “dead man.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/dead_man. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.