dead weight

noun, adverb

dead weight is spelled D-E-A-D-W-E-I-G-H-T: 10 letters. As a noun, dead weight means “Unremitting heavy weight that does not move” (English Wiktionary, September 2026). The plural of dead weight is dead weights.

How many letters and syllables are in dead weight?

Letters	10: D-E-A-D-W-E-I-G-H-T
In writing	a phrase: the frequency list counts single words
Wrong spellings searched	none measured in search

Sources: letters and syllables from the English Wiktionary's hyphenation or pronunciation; written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media).

How do you pronounce dead weight?

Australia

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

Words people confuse with dead weight

Also written: deadweight (one word or two).

Sources: English Wiktionary (homophones, alternative spellings).

Forms of dead weight

dead weights plural
deadweight

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

What does dead weight mean?

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

noun

1
Unremitting heavy weight that does not move.
2
The largest weight of cargo a ship is able to carry; i.e., the weight of a ship when fully loaded minus its weight when empty.
3
A dead load.
4
That which is useless or excess; that which slows something down.
She wants to shed the dead weight of so many stacks of old clutter.
5
The total (unpowered) weight of a train to be propelled (or hauled) by the locomotive; another locomotive being hauled dead as part of the train is a dead weight.

adverb

1
With just enough weight for a ball to drop into a pocket, or come to rest in a precisely determined position.
He rolled the red in dead weight, and now he's nicely on the blue.