Dead

Dead - (Webster's 1828 Dictionary)

DEAD,

1. Deprived or destitute of life; that state of a being, animal or vegetable, in which the organs of motion and life have ceased to perform their functions, and have become incapable of performing them, or of being restored to a state of activity.

The men are dead who sought thy life. Exo 4.

It is sometimes followed by of before the cause of death; as, dead of hunger, or of a fever.

2. Having never had life, or having been deprived of vital action before birth; as, the child was born dead.

3. Without life; inanimate.

All, all but truth, drops dead-born from the press.

4. Without vegetable life; as a dead tree.

5. Imitating death; deep or sound; as a dead sleep.

6. Perfectly still; motionless as death; as a dead calm; a dead weight.

7. Empty; vacant; not enlivened by variety; as a dead void space; a dead plain.

We say also, a dead level, for a perfectly level surface.

8. Unemployed; useless; unprofitable. A man's faculties may lie dead, or his goods remain dead on his hands. So dead capital or stock is that which produces no profit.

9. Dull; inactive; as a dead sale of commodities.

10. Dull; gloomy; still; not enlivened; as a dead winter; a dead season.

11. Still; deep; obscure; as the dead darkness of the night.

12. Dull; not lively; not resembling life; as the dead coloring of a piece; a dead eye.

13. Dull; heavy; as a dead sound.

14. Dull; frigid; lifeless; cold; not animated; not affecting; used of prayer.

15. Tasteless; vapid; spiritless; used of liquors.

16. Uninhabited; as dead walls.

17. Dull; without natural force or efficacy; not lively or brisk; as a dead fire.

18. In a state of spiritual death; void of grace; lying under the power of sin.

19. Impotent; unable to procreate.

20. Decayed in grace.

Thou hast a name that thou livest, and art dead. Rev 3.

21. Not proceeding from spiritual life; not producing good works; as, faith without works is dead. James 2.

22. Proceeding from corrupt nature, not from spiritual life or a gracious principle; as dead works. Heb 9:14.

23. In law, cut off from the rights of a citizen: deprived of power of enjoying the rights of property; as one banished or becoming a monk is civilly dead.

Dead language, a language which is no longer spoken or in common use by a people, and known only in writings; as the Hebrew, Greek and Latin.

Dead rising or rising line, the parts of a ship's floor or bottom throughout her length, where the floor timber is terminated on the lower futtock.

DEAD, n. ded.

1. The dead signifies dead men.

Ye shall not make cuttings for the dead. Lev 19.

2. The state of the dead; or death.

This is John the Baptist; he is risen from the dead. Mat 14.

DEAD, n. ded. The time when there is a remarkable stillness or gloom; depth; as in the midst of winter or of night, are familiar expressions.

DEAD, v.i. ded. To lose life or force.

DEAD, v.t. ded. To deprive of life, force or vigor.

DEAD'-DOING, a. Destructive; killing.

ded (muth; nekros): Used in several senses:

(1) as a substantive, denoting the body deprived of life, as when Abraham speaks of burying his dead (Ge 23);

(2) as a collective noun including all those that have passed away from life (as Re 20:12). In several passages dead in this sense is used in contrast to the quick or living (as Nu 16:48). This collective mode of expression is used when resurrection is described as "rising from the dead";

(3) as an adjective, coupled with body, carcass or man, as De 14:8 the King James Version;

(4) most frequently it is used as a complement of the verb "to be," referring to the condition of being deceased or the period of death, e. g. 2Sa 12:19; Mr 5:35;

(5) in the sense of being liable to death it occurs in Ge 20:3; Ex 12:33; 2Sa 16:9;

(6) as an intensive adjective it is used in the phrase "dead sleep," to mean profound sleep simulating death (Ps 76:6);

(7) figuratively "dead" is used to express the spiritual condition of those who are unable to attain to the life of faith. They are dead in trespasses, as in Eph 2:1, or conversely, those who by the New Birth are delivered from sin, are said to be dead to the Law (as Col 2:20, etc.). A faith which does not show its life in the practical virtues of Christianity is called dead (Jas 2:17);

(8) in Ro 4:19; Heb 11:12, "dead" signifies the senile condition of loss of vigor and virility.

The passage in Job 26:5, wherein in the King James Version "dead things" seem to mean things that never had life, is more accurately translated in the Revised Version (British and American) as "they that are deceased," i.e. the shades of the dead.

There are few references to the physical accompaniments of the act of dying. Deborah has a poetical account of the death of Sisera (Jud 5:24 ff), and in Ec 12, where the failure of the bodily faculties in old age culminates in death, it is pictorially compared to the breaking of a lamp extinguishing the flame ("golden" being probably used of "oil," as it is in Zec 4:12), and the loosing of the silver chebhel or chain by which the lamp is suspended in the tent of the Arabic.

The dead body defiled those who touched it (Le 11:31) and therefore sepulture took place speedily, as in the case of Lazarus (Joh 11:17-39) and Ananias and Sapphira (Ac 5:6-10). This practice is still followed by the fellahin.

The uselessness of the dead is the subject of proverb (Ec 9:4) and the phrase "dead dog" is used as a contemptuous epithet as of a person utterly worthless (1Sa 24:14; 2Sa 9:8; 16:9).

Alex. Macalister