Word.ws English Dictionary

dead on one's feet

dead on one's feet adjective: tired to the point of exhaustion, but still awake and out of bed.

Adjective

dead on one's feet (not comparable)

  1. (colloquial) Tired to the point of exhaustion, but still awake and out of bed.
    • “The manufacturing sector is dead on its feet at the moment and exports are poor,” said Rob Carnell, Asia-Pacific head of research for ING.2023 June 17, Joe Leahy, Thomas Hale, Andy Lin, quoting Rob Carnell, “China’s recovery hangs in balance as property is shunned and exports flag”, in FT Weekend, London: The Financial Times Ltd....

Questions about dead on one's feet

What does dead on one's feet mean?
Dead on one's feet means tired to the point of exhaustion, but still awake and out of bed.
What part of speech is dead on one's feet?
Dead on one's feet is an adjective.

Words near dead on one's feet in the dictionary

  1. dead of winter
  2. dead oil
  3. dead oils
  4. dead on
  5. dead on arrival
  6. dead on one's feet
  7. dead on the vine
  8. dead or alive
  9. dead pan
  10. dead panned
  11. dead panning

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: dead on one's feet (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.

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