cul-de-sac

• culdesac, cul de sac

Borrowed from French cul-de-sac, from cul (“bottom”) + de (“of”) + sac (“bag, sack”).

• (General American) IPA^(key): /ˈkʌldəsæk/

• Audio (US)

  (file)

• (UK) IPA^(key): /ˈkʌldəsak/

cul-de-sac (plural cul-de-sacs or culs-de-sac)

1. A blind alley or dead end street.
   • 1886 October – 1887 January, H[enry] Rider Haggard, She: A History of Adventure, London: Longmans, Green, and Co., published 1887, →OCLC:

     Before we had gone fifty yards we perceived that all hopes of getting further up the stream in the whale-boat were at an end, for not two hundred yards above where we had stopped were a succession of shallows and mudbanks, with not six inches of water over them. It was a watery cul de sac.

   • 1925 July – 1926 May, A[rthur] Conan Doyle, “(please specify the chapter number)”, in The Land of Mist (eBook no. 0601351h.html), Australia: Project Gutenberg Australia, published April 2019:

     His was the end house of a cul-de-sac, with the side wall of a huge brewery beyond.

2. A circular area at the end of a dead end street to allow cars to turn around, designed so children can play on the street, with little or no through-traffic.
   • 2010 January 17, Cara Buckley, “A Suburban Treasure, Left to Die”, in New York Times, page Section MB; Column 0; Metropolitan Desk; Pg. 1:

     And in suburbs known for new development, preservationists are often battling a general perception that there is nothing historic or worth saving among the cul-de-sacs.

3. (figurative) An impasse.
   • 2005 February 14, National Review:

     Physics seems, in fact, to have got itself into a cul-de-sac, obsessing over theories so mathematically abstruse that nobody even knows how to test them.

   • 2022 June 3, Günseli Yalcinkaya, quoting Mat Dryhurst, “Are you content? How the internet rewired our brains”, in Dazed‎, archived from the original on 2022-12-16:

     The internet is a remarkable tool to find others and coordinate, but as an end to itself can become a cul de sac of frustrated desires and circular arguments.

4. (medicine) A sack-like cavity, a tube open at one end only.

• turning circle

Borrowing from French cul-de-sac, from cul (“bottom”) + de (“of”) + sac (“bag, sack”).

• IPA^(key): (Central, Balearic) [ˌkul.ðəˈsak]
• IPA^(key): (Valencian) [ˌkul.ðeˈsak]

cul-de-sac m (plural cul-de-sacs)

1. cul-de-sac

   Synonyms: atzucac, carreró sense sortida, carreró sense eixida

• “cul-de-sac” in Diccionari de la llengua catalana, segona edició, Institut d’Estudis Catalans.

• IPA^(key): /ky.d(ə).sak/

• Audio (Paris)

  (file)

cul-de-sac m (plural culs-de-sac)

1. dead end, cul-de-sac (a path that goes nowhere)
2. impasse

• → English: cul-de-sac

• “cul-de-sac”, in Trésor de la langue française informatisé [Digitized Treasury of the French Language], 2012.

cul-de-sac m (plural culs-de-sac or cul-de-sacs or cul-de-sac)

1. cul-de-sac; blind alley (street that leads nowhere)

   Synonyms: rua sem saída, beco sem saída

2. cul-de-sac (circular area at the end of a dead end street)
3. (figurative) cul-de-sac; dead end; impasse

   Synonyms: impasse, beco sem saída