Word.ws English Dictionary

dead sets

dead sets is the plural of dead set.

Meaning of dead set

Noun

dead set (plural dead sets)

  1. The rigid pose a hunting dog assumes when pointing out game to a hunter.
    • The judge at the dog show took points off the Irish setter's dead set because its right ear twitched a few times.
  2. A fixed or stationary condition arising from obstacle or hindrance; a deadlock.
    • to be at a dead set
  3. (broadly, figuratively) A determined effort.
    • I might not graduate first in my class, but I'll make a dead set at it.
  4. A pointed and persistent attack on a person.
    • The result was that everyone made a dead set on Collins. It was the same in conversation. When he put his head in everyone turned on him. He was roared down unmercifully, with the inevitable result that he lost his temper.2018, Frank O'Connor, The Big Fellow: Michael Collins and the Irish Revolution

See all 6 meanings of dead set

Questions about dead sets

What is dead sets the plural of?
Dead sets is the plural of dead set.

Words near dead sets in the dictionary

  1. Dead Sea effect
  2. dead section
  3. dead sections
  4. dead set
  5. dead set against
  6. dead sets
  7. dead shot
  8. dead shots
  9. dead silence
  10. dead silences
  11. dead sleep

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: dead sets (page history and authors); dead set (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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Cite this entry: “dead sets.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/dead_sets. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.