deceased

Pluraldeceased, deceaseds

1. 1
   adjective

   No longer alive, having died.

   The letter was addressed to a tenant who had been deceased for years.

   Police are still trying to reach relatives of the deceased driver.

   Similardead, late, departed, gone, lifeless

   Oppositealive, living

   Note

   Behind the word lies a gentle image: Latin dēcessus meant a departure, from a verb meaning to go away, so it shares its picture with departed and gone. Beside dead it is the measured word, and Monty Python's Dead Parrot Sketch (1969) gets its laugh by insisting that a parrot is definitely deceased. It can stretch to things that have ceased to exist, such as a long-deceased record label.

2. 2
   the dead personnoun

   A person who has died, or those who have died; in a criminal case, the victim of a homicide.

   The coroner testified that the deceased had suffered a single blow to the head.

   Prayers for the deceased were read at the end of the service.

   Similardeparted, dead

   Oppositeliving

   Note

   The legal noun takes the and covers one person or many: the deceased was, the deceased were. American property law prefers decedent for the person whose estate is being settled, while in a criminal trial the deceased is the homicide victim. Courtroom speech can drop the article altogether, as in Agatha Christie's The Mysterious Affair at Styles (1920): Deceased had already made a will.

3. 3
   left behindadjective

   Belonging to a person who has died.

   The house was listed as a deceased estate and sold within a week.

   Settling a large deceased estate can keep an executor busy for months.

4. 4
   overwhelmed (joke)adjective

   Overwhelmed to the point of feeling figuratively dead, said in exaggeration.

   She sent me a photo of his new haircut, and I am deceased.

   My dad just tried to explain memes to my grandma, and I'm deceased.

   Similardead

   Note

   Here the solemn word becomes a punchline. It is said of oneself, after be, when something is so funny, striking or gorgeous that the speaker claims to have died of it: you look so good, I'm deceased. The joke lives in the gap between a word fit for a death notice and a cause as small as a haircut or a television cliffhanger.

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