- informal a person, thing, or situation that is completely useless or unprofitable
- a complete loss for which no compensation is received
Collins Concise English Dictionary © HarperCollins Publishers::
dead loss n
loss /lɔs, lɑs/USA pronunciation
n.
WordReference Random House Unabridged Dictionary of American English © 2026- the act of losing possession of something: [uncountable]bearing the loss of property.[countable]a temporary loss of hearing.
- something that is lost:[countable]suffered huge losses in the market crash.
- the death of a person:[countable]to mourn the loss of a grandparent.
- a losing by defeat:[countable]Another two losses and our team will be eliminated.
- decrease:[uncountable]loss of engine speed.
- Idioms at a loss:
- at less than cost:selling everything at a loss.
- in a state of bewilderment or uncertainty:I'm at a complete loss to understand what she's doing.
- dead loss, [countable] a completely useless or worthless person or thing:That decrepit old car is a dead loss.
loss
(lôs, los),USA pronunciation n.
- detriment, disadvantage, or deprivation from failure to keep, have, or get:to bear the loss of a robbery.
- something that is lost:The painting was the greatest loss from the robbery.
- an amount or number lost:The loss of life increased each day.
- the state of being deprived of or of being without something that one has had:the loss of old friends.
- death, or the fact of being dead:to mourn the loss of a grandparent.
- the accidental or inadvertent losing of something dropped, misplaced, stolen, etc.:to discover the loss of a document.
- a losing by defeat;
failure to win:the loss of a bet. - failure to make good use of something, as time;
waste. - failure to preserve or maintain:loss of engine speed at high altitudes.
- destruction or ruin:the loss of a ship by fire.
- a thing or a number of related things that are lost or destroyed to some extent:Most buildings in the burned district were a total loss.
- Military
- the losing of soldiers by death, capture, etc.
- Often, losses. the number of soldiers so lost.
- Business[Insurance.]occurrence of an event, as death or damage of property, for which the insurer makes indemnity under the terms of a policy.
- Electricitya measure of the power lost in a system, as by conversion to heat, expressed as a relation between power input and power output, as the ratio of or difference between the two quantities.
- Idioms at a loss:
- at less than cost;
at a financial loss. - in a state of bewilderment or uncertainty;
puzzled;
perplexed:We are completely at a loss for an answer to the problem.
- at less than cost;
- bef. 900; Middle English; Old English los destruction; cognate with Old Norse los looseness, breaking up. See lose, loose
- 4. privation, deprivation.
- 1. gain.
'dead loss' also found in these entries (note: many are not synonyms or translations):