dead
part of speech
adjective (dead); noun (the dead — dead people); adverb (dead = very or exactly, informal)
meaning for a pupil
1) Dead means no longer alive. tree →
2) Dead can mean not working: a dead battery, a dead phone. tree →
3) Dead can mean very quiet or with nothing happening: the town is dead on Sundays. tree →
4) Informally, dead means very or completely: dead easy, dead tired, dead ahead. tree →
5) A dead end is a road that does not go anywhere. tree →
sense in the lessons
In science living things grow, breathe, feed and reproduce; dead things no longer do; dead leaves and animals rot and feed the soil. In lessons about feelings, when a pet or a person dies, people feel grief, and it is okay to talk and cry. In safety lessons: never touch dead animals (they can carry germs); a dead battery should go into recycling. In stories «dead» can be serious or a joke (dead tired). Phrases: dead end, dead battery, dead silence, dead easy, play dead, the Dead Sea.
examples
- Our goldfish is dead; we buried it in the garden. tree →
- Dead leaves fall from the trees in autumn. tree →
- My phone is dead; I need to charge it. tree →
- Don't touch a dead bird; it could carry germs. tree →
- That puzzle was dead easy. tree →
- The dog rolled over and played dead. tree →
- We drove down the road, but it was a dead end. tree →
- There was dead silence when the teacher walked in. tree →
- She is not dead, is she?” tree →
note
«Dead» is an adjective; the verb is «die» (died, dying) and the noun is «death». Say «He is dead» or «He died», not «He is died». The informal «dead easy», «dead good» (very) is common in the UK, Ireland and Australia. Trap: something dead is different from something that was never alive (a rock is not dead; it is non-living).
In the corpora
- Being dead means the body has stopped working for ever; it is not the same as sleep.
- Cremation means the body is burned in a crematorium until only ashes are left; the dead person cannot feel anything.
- Piranhas have razor-sharp teeth and tear at dead or injured fish, but most are timid scavengers that shoal for safety.
- Beetles are insects with six legs; beetles that live under stones help to break down dead plants and animals.
- You lose many thousands of skin cells every minute, and much of house dust is dead skin.
Trees and pragmatics
Every meaning and example of «dead» parsed by Mova, each sentence with its dependency tree and frames.