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Synonyms for deadbeat
| Grammar : Noun |
| Spell : noun ded-beet; adjective ded-beet |
| Phonetic Transcription : noun ˈdɛdˌbit; adjective ˈdɛdˈbit |
Définition of deadbeat
Origin :- "worthless sponging idler," 1863, American English slang, perhaps originally Civil War slang, from dead (adj.) + beat. Earlier used colloquially as an adjectival expression to mean "completely beaten" (1821), and perhaps the base notion is of "worn out, good for nothing." It is noted in a British source from 1861 as a term for "a pensioner."
- In England "dead beat" means worn out, used up. ... But here, "dead beat" is used, as a substantive, to mean a scoundrel, a shiftless, swindling vagabond. We hear it said that such a man is a beat or a dead beat. The phrase thus used is not even good slang. It is neither humorous nor descriptive. There is not in it even a perversion of the sense of the words of which it is composed. Its origin is quite beyond conjecture. ["Americanisms," in "The Galaxy," January 1878]
- It also was used of a kind of regulating mechanism in pendulum clocks.
- noun freeloader
- I knew you looked a deadbeat, but Id no idea I was quite so bad, he said.
- Extract from : « The Protector » by Harold Bindloss
- The bartender, accepting the situation as generally inclusive, put his hands up along with his deadbeat patrons.
- Extract from : « Trail's End » by George W. Ogden
- The sparrow was deadbeat, and was travelling slowly to the north and west on a zigzag course, about two hundred feet high.
- Extract from : « H.M.S. ---- » by Klaxon
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Based on : Thesaurus.com - Gutenberg.org - Dictionary.com - Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2019