1. noun The end of a road, path, or other passage that does not have an exit or other passages attached to it. I knew my GPS was wrong when it told me to turn onto a road that came to a dead end.We've come to a dead end. We'll have to turn around and take that side road.Are you sure this is where the directions said to go? Because it sure looks like we've reached a dead end.
2. noun By extension, a situation in which no more progress or advancement is possible. I'm afraid we've come to a dead end in our investigation.My research has come to a dead end—every experiment I've tried so far has failed.How are you going to continue to progress in your current job? Sounds to me like you've hit a dead end.
3. adjective Prohibitive of or offering no possibility for progress or advancement. Sometimes hyphenated. Jerry decided he couldn't spend another minute working at that dead end job with no possibility for a promotion.The police received a lot of dead-end leads, but nothing that led them to the killer.How long are you gonna stay in this dead-end relationship? He's never gonna propose to you, honey!
4. verb To end in a way that prevents any possibility of further progress or advancement. Often hyphenated. This street dead-ends up ahead, so we'll have to turn around.I thought this internship would lead to a full-time position in the company, but things have really dead-ended.Unfortunately, our relationship dead-ended when I realized I didn't want to live with him.
COMMON You use dead end to talk about situation in which you cannot make any more progress. The signs are that their famously successful economic policy might be nearing a dead end.Do you feel you have reached a dead end at work? Note: You can use dead-end to describe a boring job or situation which will never lead to anything more interesting or successful. He was stuck in the same dead-end job for twenty years.Starting your own business is daunting but I was desperate to get out of what felt like a dead-end situation. Note: A dead end is a street which is closed at one end.
(informal) a point where no more progress can be made: Lack of further clues meant that the murder investigation came to a dead end. ♢ He was in a dead-end job with no hope of promotion.
The bad news is that not having adequate EW resources in a combat situation also results in a dead end for a military career -- a potentially fatal dead end with nothing to follow.
I often say that I believe in the "dead-end rule." This is the rule that says that if you go down a dead-end street and don't see the sign that says it's a dead end, you will soon learn by personal experience that the road is a dead end.
In a newly constructed facility, the ideal layout would feature a continuous loop which enabled residents to wander without confronting a "dead end." Observation, conference and nurses' rooms would be centrally located within the loop, while residents' bedrooms and activity rooms would be at its periphery.
The play was turned into an effective movie (1937), played by the same young actors who had appeared in the stage version; they became known as the Dead End Kids and went on to make several other motion pictures.
The exact definition of a "dead end" job can be subjective; for example, I might see a job as a dead end if there's no room for promotion in the next five years.
But as these girls are in their mid-20s it's closer in age (if not in cleverness) to Lena Dunham's Girls than a female Inbetweeners, mining that period after university when your dream career fails to just drop into your lap and you end up, as the title says, drifting between dead end jobs and even more dead end relationships.
A MAN who directed a taxi driver to a dead end street before robbing, assaulting him and stealing his car has been given an indeterminate prison sentence.
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