deadass

Pluraldeadasses

1. 1
   adverbslangUS

   Really, seriously, or actually; used to emphasize that a statement is sincere or true.

   He deadass walked out of the meeting without saying a word.

   That show was deadass the best thing I've watched all year.

   Similarliterally, seriously, honestly, really, actually

   Note

   An all-purpose sincerity booster that fits almost anywhere. It goes before an adjective (deadass starving), before a verb (I will deadass take my own soap), or stands alone as an answer, as in Joel Embiid's "Yeah, deadass. I'm really serious." It is not new: John Rechy's City of Night (1963) already has positively deadass tired. Like seriously, it never takes more or most.

2. 2
   adjectiveslangUS

   Dead serious; not joking or exaggerating in the slightest.

   Wait, are you deadass right now, or is this another one of your pranks?

   He looked deadass when he said he was quitting at the end of the month.

   Similarserious

   Note

   A sincerity marker that stands after be or entirely on its own. You hear I'm deadass and I'm being deadass, or a single Deadass tacked onto a warning to show it is meant. Joe Coscarelli, writing about Billie Eilish in 2019, puts it beside fire and trash in a young star's vocabulary. The word is thought to have started in New York before spreading in the late 1990s and 2000s.

3. 3
   adjectiveslangUS

   Genuine or real, used chiefly as an intensifier in negative statements to stress that something is completely absent or impossible.

   There was no deadass reason for the flight to be delayed that long.

   She doesn't have a deadass chance of finishing the project by Friday.

   Similarreal, genuine

   Note

   Here the word works in front of a noun, adding scorn or emphasis: dead-ass wankers, a deadass shoot. The hyphenated spelling appears alongside the closed one. Position separates it from the "dead serious" meaning. Before a noun it is an intensifier, while I'm deadass, standing after be, is a claim of sincerity. It keeps coarse company, so it belongs among friends rather than in careful writing.

4. 4
   adverbslangUS

   Directly or dead on; squarely at or exactly upon a target or point.

   The dart landed deadass in the center of the board.

   He drove deadass through the puddle and soaked everyone on the sidewalk.

   Similarsquarely, smack, right, directly

   Note

   The adverb of aim and position. Here dead keeps the force it has in dead on and dead center: a round lands dead ass on top of its target, and truth stares you deadass in the face. It has no comparative, since a hit is either square or not. Keep it apart from the "seriously" adverb. This one tells you where; that one tells you how much you mean it.

5. 5
   adjectiveslangUS

   Of a place, having very little activity or energy; dead.

   The club was deadass for a Saturday, so we left early.

   Downtown gets deadass once the office workers head home.

   Similardead, quiet, lifeless

   Oppositelively, busy, packed

   Note

   Built the plain way: dead with the slang suffix -ass added to make an adjective louder, so a deadass town is a dead town said with feeling. It usually sits right before its noun, as in deadass joint, deadass town or deadass place, and it compares with more and most. Keep it to casual US speech. In a review or report, plain dead or quiet does the same job.

6. 6
   nounslangUScountable

   A lazy or unenergetic person.

   Don't be a deadass; the trash isn't going to take itself out.

   A couple of deadasses on the crew let everyone else do the heavy lifting.

   Similarslacker, loafer, layabout, bum

   Oppositego-getter

   Note

   Here dead means lacking spring, applied to a person, and the result is a loose insult. Norman Mailer's Why Are We in Vietnam? (1967) writes it as two words and sets it against the man who has "got the spring." A year later, Tom Wolfe's The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test uses the regular plural, deadasses, for the sluggish patients on a hospital ward.

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