Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- n. One who does not pay one's debts.
- n. A lazy person; a loafer.
- adj. Not fulfilling one's obligations or paying one's debts: a deadbeat dad.
- adj. Having an indicator that stops without oscillation.
Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- Making successive movements with intervals of rest and no recoil; free from oscillatory movement.
- n. A dead-beat escapement.
- n. See dead beat , under beat, n.
Wiktionary
- n. a lazy person
- n. a person who defaults on his debts
- adj. of an instrument having a damped needle that stops without oscillation
- adj. defaulting on one's debts
- adj. defeated or exhausted
GNU Webster's 1913
- Low, U.S. a loafer, sponger, or swindler; especially, one who does not pay his debts. Same as beat, n., 7.
- adj. (Physics) Making a beat without recoil; giving indications by a single beat or excursion; -- said of galvanometers and other instruments in which the needle or index moves to the extent of its deflection and stops with little or no further oscillation.
WordNet 3.0
- n. someone who fails to meet a financial obligation
Examples
“I've known about the term deadbeat dad for four years; it's nice to know that someone else in the Cayman Islands is reading about the laws in other countries.”
“From where I sit, a deadbeat is a deadbeat, regardless of color or education.”
The Volokh Conspiracy » Looks Like Now We Need a Commercial Financial Protection Agency:
“And again, we know now in the United States people are really -- governments are really cracking down on what they call deadbeat dad.”
“What frustrates me is that the word deadbeat Dad is so dismissive," he explains, when asked what he wants others to know.”
““Well, Star’s father would be what we call a deadbeat dad and yes, what he’s done is against the law,” she replied.”
“It is not wise to allow the "deadbeat" -- the remittance man, the gaunt shepherd with his starving flocks and herds, the free selector on an arid patch, the drink shanty where the rouseabouts and shearers knock down their cheques, the race meeting where high and low, rich and poor, are filled with the gambler's ill luck -- fill the foreground of the picture of Australian life.”
“There's a phenomenon in the US of asshole males that we call deadbeat dads.”
“This would have continued suspension of disbelief in two ways. 1) the daughter would have recognized him at the train station from old photographs or something 2) It would have made better sense that they had a connection later in the movie, rather than Shia Lebouf just being cool with finding out the man he knew as his father for years and years just wasn't, and now this old deadbeat is calling him "son.”
If I had written...Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull
“What if a deadbeat is the commander's drinking buddy?”
The Wall Street Journal: It Is a Scandal Maj. Hasan Wasn't Derailed Long Ago
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘deadbeat’.
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Bad Options
words for those who commit particular crimes: i.e., bank robber, arsonist, etc.
liar, cheat, traitor, arsonist, felon, braggard, thief, profiteer, impostor, phony, fraud, culprit and 212 more...
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Genes
Interesting gene names. Some of these may have changed recently (to something less offensive/funny).
http://www.genenames.org/
tinman, agnostic, dreadlocks, Van Gogh, fruitless, lava lamp, ariadne, cheap date, ken and barbie, I'm not dead yet, I'm not dead yet 2, manic fringe and 1192 more... -
EN - Old Western Slang
a hog-killin' time, a lick and a promise, according to Hoyle, ace-high, all down but nine, arbuckle's, at sea, back down, balled up, bang-up, bazoo, bear sign and 212 more...
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WF - nominal compounds (figurative)
An extensive list I have been working on for quite some time. Feel free to add more of the kind if you miss any.
brainstorming, upside, downside, goldplating, bikeshedding, mudslinging, downgrading, headhunter, streamlining, mainstreaming, gerrymandering, frontloading and 503 more...
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people (bad)
nouns for bad people / words that describe bad people.
goto the good people list
( people, character, descriptor, noun )culprit, perpetrator, tormentor, swindler, bamboozler, nincompoop, thief, liar, back stabber, vandal, burglar, cheater and 85 more...
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the list
i live in a human..., escapism, crush, infinite, alleviate, gallows, scapegallows, violet, downfall, whisper, watch-word, haven and 15 more...
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amber words
amber words is the term I use for words that are all but fossilized, in the sense that their use is always in the context of a single expression. Examples include caboodle, dudgeon, umbrage
sanctum, akimbo, amok, riddance, druthers, trove, caboodle, immemorial, blithering, dudgeon, swaddling, askance and 110 more...
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Double diphthongs, etc.
Words with repeated diphthongs or other pairs of vowels, with no other vowels.
aeae, aiai, aoao, auau, ayay, eaea, eiei, eoeo, eueu, eyey, iaia, ieie, ioio, iuiu, oaoa, oeoe, oioi, ouo...chaetae, airmail, gainsaid, hairbrain, hairtail, jailbait, maimai, mainsail, maintain, zaikai, chainmail, braindrain and 201 more...
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Supercilious putdowns
You (...)
bumpkin, oaf, deadbeat, dullard, chump, dimwit, gombeen, dolt, blockhead, goon, knucklehead, nincompoop and 3 more...
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working list / temp / to be moved to ...
inchoate, hump day, full-tilt, handicap, catapult into nat..., flannel, have an agenda ag..., superannuation, loft conversion, pentacle, encapsulate, hen night and 50 more...
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Tunie: Danny's All-Star Joint
by Rickie Lee Jones.
Downstairs at Danny's all-star joint
They got a jukebox that goes doyt-doyt
The vice is nice, he stays in the back all day
But when the nighttime...pocket, business, lawn, street, fun, rules, hep-scat, be-bop, chicken, matzoh, girdle, magazine and 38 more...
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smallfox's Words
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pomegranate's Words
cataclysm, apocalypse, catharsis, boggle, coriander, sagebrush, sacristy, centripetal, antidote, anecdote, man-who story, hirsute and 61 more...
Tweets
Looking for tweets for deadbeat.
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