Dead-ender
noun
noun ·3 syllables ·Rare ·Advanced level
Definitions
Noun
- 1 One who has no prospects for the future; a loser; a dropout.
- 2 One who still holds onto a political position or other viewpoint that is considered outdated or defeated.
"In the first months after the fall of Baghdad, Rumsfeld and his aides still had a limited view of the insurgency, seeing it as little more than the work of Baathist "dead-enders," criminal gangs, and foreign terrorists who were Al Qaeda followers."
Example
More examples"In the first months after the fall of Baghdad, Rumsfeld and his aides still had a limited view of the insurgency, seeing it as little more than the work of Baathist "dead-enders," criminal gangs, and foreign terrorists who were Al Qaeda followers."
Etymology
From dead end + -er.
More for "dead-ender"
Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.