Dead ringer is an idiom in English. It means "an exact duplicate" or "100% duplicate", and derives from 19th-century horse-racing slang for a horse presented "under a false name and pedigree"; "ringer" was a late nineteenth-century term for a duplicate, usually with implications of dishonesty, and "dead" in this case means "precise", as in "dead centre".[1] [2]

The term is sometimes said to derive, like "saved by the bell", from a custom of providing a cord in coffins for someone who has been buried alive to ring a bell to call for help, but this is a folk etymology.[1][2][3]

References

Look up dead ringer in Wiktionary, the free dictionary.
  1. 1 2 Gary Martin. "A dead ringer". Phrase Finder. Retrieved 12 November 2016. Citing the Manitoba Free Press, October 1882.
  2. 1 2 Emily Upton. "The origin of the phrase "dead ringer"". Today I Found Out. Retrieved 30 April 2022.
  3. ↑ Wilton, David (November 2008). Word Myths: Debunking Linguistic Urban Legends. Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-537557-2.
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