dead weight

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dead weight (countable and uncountable, plural dead weights)

1. Unremitting heavy weight that does not move.
   • 2003, William Gibson, Pattern Recognition (Bigend cycle; book 1), New York: G. P. Putnam's Sons, →ISBN, page 154:

     His dead weight, as he abruptly collapses, pulls his lapels from her hands, reminding her to step back, off-balancing whoever is behind her, […]

2. (nautical) The largest weight of cargo a ship is able to carry; i.e, the weight of a ship when fully loaded minus its weight when empty.
3. (construction) Dead load.
4. (figuratively) That which is useless or excess; that which slows something down.

   She wants to shed the dead weight of so many stacks of old clutter.

   • 1837, L[etitia] E[lizabeth] L[andon], “Unavailing Regret”, in Ethel Churchill: Or, The Two Brides. […], volume II, London: Henry Colburn, […], →OCLC, page 105:

     It was Ethel Churchill, dressed as a bride, and on her wedding morning, that Norbourne had seen. She had sought the summer-house for a few moments of quiet and solitude. There was a dead weight on her spirits, which she rather sought to indulge than to shake off.

   • 1938, Norman Lindsay, Age of Consent, 1st Australian edition, Sydney, N.S.W.: Ure Smith, published 1962, →OCLC, page 219:

     For ten minutes he waited there, jabbed at by his nerves, with every minute mounting up a dead weight of suspense.

   • 2015, Neville Ramdeholl, The Man Who Woke Up Dead:

     They have the brains to rob a bank, but I guess only the rest of the gray matter is nothing but dead weight.

   • 2017 July 23, Brandon Nowalk, “The great game begins with a bang on Game Of Thrones (newbies)”, in The Onion AV Club‎:

     Nobody could ever be bothered to imagine the Sand Snakes beyond personalized weaponry and fake-aggressive quips, none of which were very convincing, and now they don’t even register as dead weight.

   • 2023 July 22, Barbara Speed, quoting Rosie (31), “‘We could soon see a Jane Austen-style marriage market’: how the housing crisis is turning modern dating on its head”, in The Guardian‎, →ISSN:

     “Contrasted with that, the flat is a tick against my name – it makes him think I’m a safe bet, that I’m not going to be dead weight.”

5. (rail transport) The total (unpowered) weight of a train to be propelled (or hauled) by the locomotive; another locomotive being hauled dead as part of the train is a dead weight.
   • 2023 November 29, “Network News: Test runs for WCR fleet returnees”, in RAIL, number 997, page 24:

     Having dropped the coach, the trio returned with the Class 47 leading and the other two locomotives as dead weight.

• “dead weight”, in Lexico, Dictionary.com; Oxford University Press, 2019–2022.
• “dead weight”, in Cambridge English Dictionary, Cambridge, Cambridgeshire: Cambridge University Press, 1999–present.
• “dead weight” (US) / “dead weight” (UK) in Macmillan English Dictionary.
• “deadweight”, in Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary, Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster, 1996–present.
• “deadweight” in Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English, Longman.

dead weight

1. (of a shot in snooker or other cue sports) With just enough weight for a ball to drop into a pocket, or come to rest in a precisely determined position.
   • 2015, Steve Davis, Interesting: My Autobiography‎, →ISBN:

     I had no escape other than trying to roll off a side cushion, just ahead of the middle pocket, and lay on a red, dead weight, about a foot from the pocket in open play.

   • 2017, Hector Nunns, The Crucible's Greatest Matches: Forty Years of Snooker's World Championship‎, →ISBN:

     I potted a really difficult cut red into the middle pocket, dropping it in dead weight and finishing on the pink for a 59 break that pretty much got me there.

   • 2018, David Horrix, Complete Book of Snooker Shots‎, →ISBN:

     From behind the Brown, aim to drop in dead-weight into the back of the pack.

   He rolled the red in dead weight, and now he's nicely on the blue.