Word.ws English Dictionary

wouldn't be seen dead

wouldn't be seen dead verb: to find incredibly horrifying; embarrassing or otherwise entirely unsuitable for oneself.

Verb

wouldn't be seen dead

  1. (idiomatic) To find incredibly horrifying; embarrassing or otherwise entirely unsuitable for oneself.
    • I really don't want to buy anything. You seem by bad luck to be stocked up with just the sort of things I wouldn't be seen dead in a ditch with. I can't stand rubber rings, never could. I'm not really keen on buttonhooks.1916, P. G. Wodehouse, chapter 1, in Uneasy Money
    • He'd seen an item about the resort on TV, though he couldn't remember whether it had been Tomorrow's World, Holiday or Eurotrash. What he could remember was swearing he wouldn't be seen dead in the place2012, Christopher Brookmyre, One Fine Day in the Middle of the Night

Questions about wouldn't be seen dead

What does wouldn't be seen dead mean?
Wouldn't be seen dead means to find incredibly horrifying; embarrassing or otherwise entirely unsuitable for oneself.
What part of speech is wouldn't be seen dead?
Wouldn't be seen dead is a verb.

Words near wouldn't be seen dead in the dictionary

  1. wouldingness
  2. wouldings
  3. wouldja
  4. wouldn't
  5. wouldn't be caught dead
  6. wouldn't be seen dead
  7. wouldn't harm a fly
  8. wouldn't say no
  9. wouldn't shout if a shark bit him
  10. wouldn't touch with yours
  11. wouldn't work in an iron lung

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: wouldn't be seen dead (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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