"dead-ender" meaning in English

See dead-ender in All languages combined, or Wiktionary

Noun

Forms: dead-enders [plural]
Etymology: From dead end + -er. Etymology templates: {{suffix|en|dead end|er|id2=occupation}} dead end + -er Head templates: {{en-noun}} dead-ender (plural dead-enders)
  1. One who has no prospects for the future; a loser; a dropout.
    Sense id: en-dead-ender-en-noun-Sw7S7kUm
  2. One who still holds onto a political position or other viewpoint that is considered outdated or defeated.
    Sense id: en-dead-ender-en-noun-~GhZZEvB Categories (other): English entries with incorrect language header, English terms suffixed with -er (occupation), Pages with 1 entry, Pages with entries Disambiguation of English entries with incorrect language header: 27 73 Disambiguation of English terms suffixed with -er (occupation): 30 70 Disambiguation of Pages with 1 entry: 30 70 Disambiguation of Pages with entries: 28 72

Inflected forms

Alternative forms

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  "etymology_templates": [
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "en",
        "2": "dead end",
        "3": "er",
        "id2": "occupation"
      },
      "expansion": "dead end + -er",
      "name": "suffix"
    }
  ],
  "etymology_text": "From dead end + -er.",
  "forms": [
    {
      "form": "dead-enders",
      "tags": [
        "plural"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "args": {},
      "expansion": "dead-ender (plural dead-enders)",
      "name": "en-noun"
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  ],
  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "noun",
  "senses": [
    {
      "glosses": [
        "One who has no prospects for the future; a loser; a dropout."
      ],
      "id": "en-dead-ender-en-noun-Sw7S7kUm",
      "links": [
        [
          "future",
          "future"
        ],
        [
          "loser",
          "loser"
        ],
        [
          "dropout",
          "dropout"
        ]
      ]
    },
    {
      "categories": [
        {
          "_dis": "27 73",
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "English entries with incorrect language header",
          "parents": [
            "Entries with incorrect language header",
            "Entry maintenance"
          ],
          "source": "w+disamb"
        },
        {
          "_dis": "30 70",
          "kind": "other",
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          "parents": [],
          "source": "w+disamb"
        },
        {
          "_dis": "30 70",
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          "parents": [],
          "source": "w+disamb"
        },
        {
          "_dis": "28 72",
          "kind": "other",
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          "source": "w+disamb"
        }
      ],
      "examples": [
        {
          "ref": "2004 05, Harold Wallace Ross, William Shawn, Tina Brown, David Remnick, Katharine Sergeant Angell White, Rea Irvin, Roger Angell, The New Yorker:",
          "text": "In the first months after the fall of Baghdad, Rumsfeld and his aides still had a limited view of the insurgency, seeing it as little more than the work of Baathist \"dead-enders,\" criminal gangs, and foreign terrorists who were Al Qaeda followers.",
          "type": "quote"
        },
        {
          "ref": "2015 August 11, Rick Perlstein, The Invisible Bridge: The Fall of Nixon and the Rise of Reagan, Simon and Schuster, →ISBN, page 734:",
          "text": "Unlike the ideological dead-enders, veterans of the Goldwater campaign, they didn't see much difference between Reagan and Ford—and, other things being equal, they were more inclined to side with the establishment than with the insurgency[…]",
          "type": "quote"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "One who still holds onto a political position or other viewpoint that is considered outdated or defeated."
      ],
      "id": "en-dead-ender-en-noun-~GhZZEvB",
      "links": [
        [
          "political",
          "political"
        ],
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        ],
        [
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          "outdated"
        ],
        [
          "defeated",
          "defeated"
        ]
      ]
    }
  ],
  "word": "dead-ender"
}
{
  "categories": [
    "English countable nouns",
    "English entries with incorrect language header",
    "English lemmas",
    "English multiword terms",
    "English nouns",
    "English terms suffixed with -er (occupation)",
    "Pages with 1 entry",
    "Pages with entries"
  ],
  "etymology_templates": [
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "en",
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        "3": "er",
        "id2": "occupation"
      },
      "expansion": "dead end + -er",
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    }
  ],
  "etymology_text": "From dead end + -er.",
  "forms": [
    {
      "form": "dead-enders",
      "tags": [
        "plural"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "args": {},
      "expansion": "dead-ender (plural dead-enders)",
      "name": "en-noun"
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  ],
  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "noun",
  "senses": [
    {
      "glosses": [
        "One who has no prospects for the future; a loser; a dropout."
      ],
      "links": [
        [
          "future",
          "future"
        ],
        [
          "loser",
          "loser"
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        ]
      ]
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    {
      "categories": [
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      ],
      "examples": [
        {
          "ref": "2004 05, Harold Wallace Ross, William Shawn, Tina Brown, David Remnick, Katharine Sergeant Angell White, Rea Irvin, Roger Angell, The New Yorker:",
          "text": "In the first months after the fall of Baghdad, Rumsfeld and his aides still had a limited view of the insurgency, seeing it as little more than the work of Baathist \"dead-enders,\" criminal gangs, and foreign terrorists who were Al Qaeda followers.",
          "type": "quote"
        },
        {
          "ref": "2015 August 11, Rick Perlstein, The Invisible Bridge: The Fall of Nixon and the Rise of Reagan, Simon and Schuster, →ISBN, page 734:",
          "text": "Unlike the ideological dead-enders, veterans of the Goldwater campaign, they didn't see much difference between Reagan and Ford—and, other things being equal, they were more inclined to side with the establishment than with the insurgency[…]",
          "type": "quote"
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      "glosses": [
        "One who still holds onto a political position or other viewpoint that is considered outdated or defeated."
      ],
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        [
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          "position"
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          "defeated",
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        ]
      ]
    }
  ],
  "word": "dead-ender"
}

Download raw JSONL data for dead-ender meaning in English (2.0kB)


This page is a part of the kaikki.org machine-readable English dictionary. This dictionary is based on structured data extracted on 2025-03-23 from the enwiktionary dump dated 2025-03-21 using wiktextract (fef8596 and 633533e). 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.