See dead letter on Wiktionary
Download JSON data for dead letter meaning in All languages combined (4.8kB)
{
"derived": [
{
"_dis1": "0 0 0",
"word": "dead letter office"
}
],
"forms": [
{
"form": "dead letters",
"tags": [
"plural"
]
}
],
"head_templates": [
{
"args": {},
"expansion": "dead letter (plural dead letters)",
"name": "en-noun"
}
],
"lang": "English",
"lang_code": "en",
"pos": "noun",
"related": [
{
"_dis1": "0 0 0",
"word": "letter of the law"
}
],
"senses": [
{
"categories": [
{
"_dis": "68 13 19",
"kind": "topical",
"langcode": "en",
"name": "Post",
"orig": "en:Post",
"parents": [
"Communication",
"All topics",
"Fundamental"
],
"source": "w+disamb"
}
],
"glosses": [
"An item of mail that cannot be delivered to its intended recipient; after some time it is returned to the sender, or destroyed."
],
"id": "en-dead_letter-en-noun-NRZNZkWN",
"links": [
[
"mail",
"mail"
],
[
"delivered",
"delivered"
],
[
"recipient",
"recipient"
],
[
"returned",
"returned"
],
[
"sender",
"sender"
],
[
"destroyed",
"destroyed"
]
],
"translations": [
{
"_dis1": "92 5 2",
"code": "cmn",
"lang": "Chinese Mandarin",
"roman": "xiāxìn",
"sense": "item of mail",
"word": "瞎信"
},
{
"_dis1": "92 5 2",
"code": "cmn",
"lang": "Chinese Mandarin",
"roman": "mángxìn",
"sense": "item of mail",
"word": "盲信"
},
{
"_dis1": "92 5 2",
"code": "cmn",
"lang": "Chinese Mandarin",
"roman": "sǐxìn",
"sense": "item of mail",
"word": "死信"
},
{
"_dis1": "92 5 2",
"code": "fi",
"lang": "Finnish",
"sense": "item of mail",
"word": "perille toimittamaton kirje"
},
{
"_dis1": "92 5 2",
"code": "fr",
"lang": "French",
"sense": "item of mail",
"word": "n’habite pas à l’adresse indiquée"
}
]
},
{
"categories": [
{
"_dis": "8 54 38",
"kind": "other",
"name": "English entries with incorrect language header",
"parents": [
"Entries with incorrect language header",
"Entry maintenance"
],
"source": "w+disamb"
},
{
"_dis": "25 44 32",
"kind": "other",
"name": "English entries with topic categories using raw markup",
"parents": [
"Entries with topic categories using raw markup",
"Entry maintenance"
],
"source": "w+disamb"
},
{
"_dis": "21 50 29",
"kind": "other",
"name": "English terms with non-redundant non-automated sortkeys",
"parents": [
"Terms with non-redundant non-automated sortkeys",
"Entry maintenance"
],
"source": "w+disamb"
}
],
"examples": [
{
"ref": "1787, Alexander Hamilton, Federalist Papers, Federalist no. 22",
"text": "Laws are a dead letter, without courts to expound and define their true meaning and operation."
},
{
"ref": "1894, Alice Morse Earle, Customs and Fashions in Old New England, page 239",
"text": "Playing-cards — the devil's picture-books — were hated by the Puritans like the very devil; […] The fine for selling these cards must have been a dead letter, for we find in the newspapers proof of the prevalence of card-playing.",
"type": "quotation"
},
{
"text": "1905, Basil Hall Chamberlain, Things Japanese, Railways\nThe most formidable obstacle in the way of Japanese railway enterprise is that conflicting interests and local intrigues are apt to render the law of expropriation for public benefit little more than a dead letter."
},
{
"ref": "1932, Harry Haywood, Milton Howard, Lynching: A Weapon of National Oppression, page 12",
"text": "But since, in all these states, the grand juries and the courts refuse to act, the laws are dead letters.",
"type": "quotation"
}
],
"glosses": [
"A law or other measure that is no longer enforced."
],
"id": "en-dead_letter-en-noun-EfaezxID",
"links": [
[
"law",
"law"
],
[
"enforced",
"enforced"
]
],
"translations": [
{
"_dis1": "5 90 5",
"code": "nl",
"lang": "Dutch",
"sense": "law or other measure that is no longer enforced",
"word": "dode letter"
},
{
"_dis1": "5 90 5",
"code": "fi",
"lang": "Finnish",
"sense": "law or other measure that is no longer enforced",
"word": "kuollut kirjain"
},
{
"_dis1": "5 90 5",
"code": "pt",
"lang": "Portuguese",
"sense": "law or other measure that is no longer enforced",
"word": "letra morta"
},
{
"_dis1": "5 90 5",
"code": "es",
"lang": "Spanish",
"sense": "law or other measure that is no longer enforced",
"tags": [
"feminine"
],
"word": "letra muerta"
},
{
"_dis1": "5 90 5",
"code": "es",
"lang": "Spanish",
"sense": "law or other measure that is no longer enforced",
"word": "papel mojado"
}
]
},
{
"categories": [],
"examples": [
{
"ref": "1833, Edgar Allan Poe, MS. Found in a Bottle",
"text": "I have thought proper to premise thus much, lest the incredible tale I have to tell should be considered rather the raving of a crude imagination, than the positive experience of a mind to which the reveries of fancy have been a dead letter and a nullity.",
"type": "quotation"
}
],
"glosses": [
"Anything that has lost its authority or influence despite still being in existence or formally in force."
],
"id": "en-dead_letter-en-noun-eR36SWjD",
"raw_glosses": [
"(by extension) Anything that has lost its authority or influence despite still being in existence or formally in force."
],
"tags": [
"broadly"
]
}
],
"wikipedia": [
"dead letter"
],
"word": "dead letter"
}
{
"categories": [
"English countable nouns",
"English entries with incorrect language header",
"English entries with topic categories using raw markup",
"English lemmas",
"English multiword terms",
"English nouns",
"English terms with non-redundant non-automated sortkeys",
"en:Post"
],
"derived": [
{
"word": "dead letter office"
}
],
"forms": [
{
"form": "dead letters",
"tags": [
"plural"
]
}
],
"head_templates": [
{
"args": {},
"expansion": "dead letter (plural dead letters)",
"name": "en-noun"
}
],
"lang": "English",
"lang_code": "en",
"pos": "noun",
"related": [
{
"word": "letter of the law"
}
],
"senses": [
{
"glosses": [
"An item of mail that cannot be delivered to its intended recipient; after some time it is returned to the sender, or destroyed."
],
"links": [
[
"mail",
"mail"
],
[
"delivered",
"delivered"
],
[
"recipient",
"recipient"
],
[
"returned",
"returned"
],
[
"sender",
"sender"
],
[
"destroyed",
"destroyed"
]
]
},
{
"categories": [
"English terms with quotations",
"Quotation templates to be cleaned"
],
"examples": [
{
"ref": "1787, Alexander Hamilton, Federalist Papers, Federalist no. 22",
"text": "Laws are a dead letter, without courts to expound and define their true meaning and operation."
},
{
"ref": "1894, Alice Morse Earle, Customs and Fashions in Old New England, page 239",
"text": "Playing-cards — the devil's picture-books — were hated by the Puritans like the very devil; […] The fine for selling these cards must have been a dead letter, for we find in the newspapers proof of the prevalence of card-playing.",
"type": "quotation"
},
{
"text": "1905, Basil Hall Chamberlain, Things Japanese, Railways\nThe most formidable obstacle in the way of Japanese railway enterprise is that conflicting interests and local intrigues are apt to render the law of expropriation for public benefit little more than a dead letter."
},
{
"ref": "1932, Harry Haywood, Milton Howard, Lynching: A Weapon of National Oppression, page 12",
"text": "But since, in all these states, the grand juries and the courts refuse to act, the laws are dead letters.",
"type": "quotation"
}
],
"glosses": [
"A law or other measure that is no longer enforced."
],
"links": [
[
"law",
"law"
],
[
"enforced",
"enforced"
]
]
},
{
"categories": [
"English terms with quotations",
"Quotation templates to be cleaned"
],
"examples": [
{
"ref": "1833, Edgar Allan Poe, MS. Found in a Bottle",
"text": "I have thought proper to premise thus much, lest the incredible tale I have to tell should be considered rather the raving of a crude imagination, than the positive experience of a mind to which the reveries of fancy have been a dead letter and a nullity.",
"type": "quotation"
}
],
"glosses": [
"Anything that has lost its authority or influence despite still being in existence or formally in force."
],
"raw_glosses": [
"(by extension) Anything that has lost its authority or influence despite still being in existence or formally in force."
],
"tags": [
"broadly"
]
}
],
"translations": [
{
"code": "cmn",
"lang": "Chinese Mandarin",
"roman": "xiāxìn",
"sense": "item of mail",
"word": "瞎信"
},
{
"code": "cmn",
"lang": "Chinese Mandarin",
"roman": "mángxìn",
"sense": "item of mail",
"word": "盲信"
},
{
"code": "cmn",
"lang": "Chinese Mandarin",
"roman": "sǐxìn",
"sense": "item of mail",
"word": "死信"
},
{
"code": "fi",
"lang": "Finnish",
"sense": "item of mail",
"word": "perille toimittamaton kirje"
},
{
"code": "fr",
"lang": "French",
"sense": "item of mail",
"word": "n’habite pas à l’adresse indiquée"
},
{
"code": "nl",
"lang": "Dutch",
"sense": "law or other measure that is no longer enforced",
"word": "dode letter"
},
{
"code": "fi",
"lang": "Finnish",
"sense": "law or other measure that is no longer enforced",
"word": "kuollut kirjain"
},
{
"code": "pt",
"lang": "Portuguese",
"sense": "law or other measure that is no longer enforced",
"word": "letra morta"
},
{
"code": "es",
"lang": "Spanish",
"sense": "law or other measure that is no longer enforced",
"tags": [
"feminine"
],
"word": "letra muerta"
},
{
"code": "es",
"lang": "Spanish",
"sense": "law or other measure that is no longer enforced",
"word": "papel mojado"
}
],
"wikipedia": [
"dead letter"
],
"word": "dead letter"
}
This page is a part of the kaikki.org machine-readable All languages combined dictionary. This dictionary is based on structured data extracted on 2024-05-03 from the enwiktionary dump dated 2024-05-02 using wiktextract (f4fd8c9 and c9440ce). The data shown on this site has been post-processed and various details (e.g., extra categories) removed, some information disambiguated, and additional data merged from other sources. See the raw data download page for the unprocessed wiktextract data.
If you use this data in academic research, please cite Tatu Ylonen: Wiktextract: Wiktionary as Machine-Readable Structured Data, Proceedings of the 13th Conference on Language Resources and Evaluation (LREC), pp. 1317-1325, Marseille, 20-25 June 2022. Linking to the relevant page(s) under https://kaikki.org would also be greatly appreciated.