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dead end Definition

dead end

dead-end Definition

dead·-end (ded′end′; for vi. ded′end′)

adjective

  1. having only one exit or outlet a dead-end street
  2. giving no opportunity for progress or advancement a dead-end job
  3. ☆

    Etymology: after Dead End, a play (1935) by Sidney Kingsley about New York slum life

    Informal of or characteristic of slums or slum life

intransitive verb

  1. to terminate in a dead end: said as of a street
  2. to reach or come to a dead end to dead-end in a middle management position
dead-end Usage Examples

Converse of object

  • reach: A client of the advice bureau where I work has reached a dead-end with his mortgage endowment complaint.
  • hit: Go right until you hit another dead-end and proceed right a second time.

Adjective modifier

  • intellectual: It is high time to redirect public investments away from the financial and intellectual dead-end that biotechnology is proving itself to be.
  • financial: The corporations are deserting biotech research as a financial dead-end.

Modifies a noun

  • job: However, the report says that forcing lone parents to look for jobs may result in many of them becoming locked into dead-end jobs.
  • lane: There are typically many dead-end lanes, leading out onto the farmland beside the water.
  • host: Cattle could prove to be a ' dead-end host ' .
  • street: I lived on a dead-end street of about 15 houses.
  • road: The rest of the land behind the dead-end road along the shore is devoted to golf.
  • situation: How can junior doctors avoid being left in a dead-end situation?