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PlainSpell

dead

/dɛd/adjective, adverb, noun, verb

dead is spelled D-E-A-D. The wrong spelling people search most is daed: about 80 Bing searches a month in the United States (September 2025 to August 2026), about 1 in 52 of all searches for the word. Dead is an adjective meaning “No longer living; deceased. (Also used as a noun.)”.

How many letters and syllables are in dead?

Letters4: D-E-A-D
Syllables1 (from its American pronunciation)
In writing155 times per million words; the 657th most frequent word form
Wrong spellings searched1; the most searched, daed, about 80 Bing searches a month (all of them)

Sources: letters and syllables from the English Wiktionary's hyphenation or pronunciation and the CMU Pronouncing Dictionary; written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media); Bing searches in the United States: the average month from September 2025 to August 2026 (Microsoft Advertising keyword data through DataForSEO, read September 30, 2026).

How do you spell dead?

Dead is spelled D-E-A-D. One wrong spelling is searched or written often enough to measure; together they are about 1 in 52 of the searches for dead in either form.

deadthe right spelling4,110 searches a month
daede and a swapped80 searches a month

Bing searches in the United States: the average month from September 2025 to August 2026 (Microsoft Advertising keyword data through DataForSEO, read September 30, 2026). Wrong spellings are taken from Wiktionary entries tagged "misspelling" and its obsolete or nonstandard forms, Wikipedia's Lists of common misspellings and the codespell dictionary, then measured. The proofreader's marks show the change that corrects each one.

How common is dead?

Dead appears 155 times per million words in written English, the 657th most frequent word form in the list.

Source: written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media).

How do you pronounce dead?

  • /dɛd/
  • /diːd/

Dead has one syllable (counted from its American pronunciation in the CMU Pronouncing Dictionary).

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Recordings: En-us-dead.ogg, En-au-dead.ogg, Wikimedia Commons (author and licence on each file's page).

Words people confuse with dead

Also written: ded.

Sources: English Wiktionary (homophones, alternative spellings).

Forms of dead

  • deader comparative
  • deadest superlative
  • deads plural, present, singular, he/she/it
  • deading participle, present
  • deaded participle, past

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).

What does dead mean?

The meanings the English Wiktionary records, quoted as written there (source below).

adjective

  1. 1

    No longer living; deceased. (Also used as a noun.)

    All of my grandparents are dead.

  2. 2

    Devoid of living things; barren.

    a dead planet

  3. 3

    Figuratively, not alive; lacking life.

  4. 4

    Utterly exhausted.

  5. 5

    So hated or offensive as to be absolutely shunned, ignored, or ostracized.

    He is dead to me.

  6. 6

    Doomed; marked for death; as good as dead.

    "You come back here this instant! Oh, you're dead, mister!"

  7. 7

    Without emotion; impassive.

    She stood with dead face and limp arms, unresponsive to my plea.

  8. 8

    Stationary; static; immobile or immovable.

    the dead load on the floor

adverb

  1. 1

    colloquialinformalExactly.

    dead right; dead level; dead flat; dead straight; dead left

  2. 2

    colloquialinformalVery, absolutely, extremely.

    dead wrong; dead set; dead serious; dead drunk; dead broke; dead earnest; dead certain; dead slow; dead sure; dead simple; dead honest; dead accurate; dead easy

  3. 3

    Suddenly and completely.

    He stopped dead.

  4. 4

    informalAs if dead.

    dead tired; dead quiet; dead asleep; dead pale; dead cold; dead still

noun

  1. 1

    Time when coldness, darkness, or stillness is most intense.

    Near-synonym: nadir

  2. 2

    Those who have died: dead people.

    the quick and the dead

  3. 3

    UK(usually in the plural) Sterile mining waste, often present as many large rocks stacked inside the workings.

  4. 4

    colloquialClipping of deadlift.

verb

  1. 1

    To prevent by disabling; to stop.

  2. 2

    To make dead; to deaden; to deprive of life, force, or vigour.

  3. 3

    UKUSslangTo kill.

  4. 4

    slangTo discontinue or put an end to (something).

noun

as DEAD
  1. 1

    Initialism of diethyl azodicarboxylate.

  2. 2

    Acronym of destruction of enemy air defense(s).

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).

Dead in Spanish, French, German and Portuguese

LanguageWords
Frenchmort (no longer alive), mdr (texting or Internet slang: dying of laughter), milieu, cœur, profondeurs (time when coldness, darkness, or stillness is…)
Germantot, gestorben (no longer alive), leblos (figuratively, not alive), bewegungslos, regungslos (fully and completely motionless), genau (exactly)
Portuguesemorto (no longer alive), dormente (experiencing pins and needles)
Spanishmuerto, finado (no longer alive)

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Translations are Wiktionary's, by sense; a linked word has its own PlainSpell page.

Where does dead come from?

From Middle English ded, deed, from Old English dēad, from Proto-West Germanic *daud, from Proto-Germanic *daudaz. Compare West Frisian dead, dea, Dutch dood, German tot, Danish and Norwegian Bokmål død, Norwegian Nynorsk daud, Swedish död.

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).

What to look up after dead