Definitions starting with D

ID #1612

dead

adv. [Atlantic; Brit. dial. idem EDD] extremely: 1966 I dead hungry (Crowley 110). Dead high.. .dead hungry (Exuma). That old woman skin dead stretchy (Nassau). (Black)

—n. [Car., OED, one who is dead.. .formerly with a] a dead person: They gone to look at the dead (Nassau). (Black)

—v. [Pan-Creole; creoles of other lexical bases have a parallel v. from the standard past participle or adj., e.g. Mauritian Fr. mor (Baker p.c.) or Afrikaans dood, both 'to die' (lit, dead); cf. also OED dead to die obs. →1475, and be dead "anciently used in the sense of 'to die'", 1803 "He was dead of scarlet fever"; this last usage is the likely source, influenced by the general tendency for adj. to become verbs as in West African languages]

to die: 1918 Befo' de man dead, his wife promise him dat (Parsons 163). Let the sponges dead (Mayag.). a(Nassau). (Black)

Tags: adverb, noun, verb

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Last update: 2010-09-11 01:44
Author: Holm and Shilling, DBE, 1982
Revision: 1.0

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