# deadline

Pronunciation: US say "DED-lyn" /ˈdɛdˌlaɪn/; UK

## Noun

1. A time limit, usually a date, on or before which something must be completed.
   - Simple: A date or time by which you must finish something.
   - _The reporter filed her story just minutes before the deadline._
   - _Missing the deadline could cost the company the entire contract._

## Verb

2. To take a piece of equipment out of service, such as grounding an aircraft, so it cannot perform its mission.
   - Simple: To take a vehicle or machine out of service so it cannot be used.
   - _Inspectors will deadline any vehicle that fails to meet maintenance standards._
   - _Maintenance crews deadlined three aircraft pending engine inspections._

## Noun

3. A boundary line around a prison camp that prisoners would be shot for crossing. *(archaic)*
   - Simple: A line around a prison that prisoners were shot for crossing.
   - _Anyone who crossed the deadline was shot without warning by the tower guards._
   - _Prisoners learned to stay well clear of the deadline at all times._
4. A guide line marked on a plate used in a printing press. *(archaic)*
   - Simple: A guide mark drawn on a printing plate to show where the print should sit.
   - _The compositor aligned the text to the deadline marked on the plate._
   - _A faint deadline guided where the printed area began._
5. A fixed line that does not move. *(archaic)*
   - Simple: A mark or line that stays fixed and never moves.
   - _Engineers laid out a deadline along the ridge as a reference that would not shift._
   - _The fence followed a deadline marked decades earlier._

## Origin

According to the Oxford English Dictionary, early usage referred to lines that do not move, such as one used in angling, and slightly later American usage referred to a boundary in a prison that prisoners must not cross. There is only indirect evidence linking the "due date" sense to this use during the American Civil War. By 1917 the term appeared as a printing term for a guideline on a press beyond which text would not print, and three years later it was used in publishing for the time after which material would not make it into a newspaper.

Source: DictionaryAI, https://dictionaryai.com/define/deadline (written from Wiktionary data, CC BY-SA 4.0: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/).