1
: the unrelieved weight of an inert mass
2
3
: a ship's load including the total weight of cargo, fuel, stores, crew, and passengers
Examples of deadweight in a Sentence
Recent Examples on the Web
What’s your prognosis for the season? 2023 was an anomaly of deadweight contracts and injuries crashing into a youth movement.
—
Daniel Kohn, SPIN, 27 Mar. 2024
The benefit is the removal of intermediaries and all the inefficiency and deadweight losses therein.
—Korok Ray, Forbes, 15 Feb. 2024
With 12 tackles, 1.5 tackles for a loss, a sack and two quarterback hurries, Asante played hero ball Saturday night as Auburn leaned on its defense with deadweight as the Tigers’ offense sputtered.
—Ainslie Lee | Alee@al.com, al, 12 Sep. 2023
To put the challenge in perspective, less than 2% of U.S. seaborne trade moves on ships with those characteristics, and the size of the U.S.-flag fleet (as measured in deadweight tonnage) has declined by a third since 2000.
—Loren Thompson, Forbes, 18 Apr. 2023
Well, at least the Reds wouldn’t be hamstrung with an astronomical, deadweight contract for long.
—Jason Williams, The Enquirer, 20 Apr. 2023
About 60 percent of the deadweight tonnage moved to front lines is gasoline and oil.
—Popular Mechanics Editors, Popular Mechanics, 6 June 2021
The interest rate increases so far, including Tuesday’s move, will add over A$900 a month in repayments to the average A$500,000 mortgage, according to RateCity, a deadweight for a population that holds A$2 trillion ($1.3 trillion) in home loans.
—Reuters, CNN, 7 Feb. 2023
What had seemed like a boon to our usecase ended up as a deadweight on our prospects – if investing all this money on autonomy only enabled us to clamor to fight for similar top line as incumbents, why even work on autonomy?
—Stefan Seltz-Axmacher, Forbes, 24 Jan. 2023
Daniel Kohn, SPIN, 27 Mar. 2024
The benefit is the removal of intermediaries and all the inefficiency and deadweight losses therein.
—Korok Ray, Forbes, 15 Feb. 2024
With 12 tackles, 1.5 tackles for a loss, a sack and two quarterback hurries, Asante played hero ball Saturday night as Auburn leaned on its defense with deadweight as the Tigers’ offense sputtered.
—Ainslie Lee | Alee@al.com, al, 12 Sep. 2023
To put the challenge in perspective, less than 2% of U.S. seaborne trade moves on ships with those characteristics, and the size of the U.S.-flag fleet (as measured in deadweight tonnage) has declined by a third since 2000.
—Loren Thompson, Forbes, 18 Apr. 2023
Well, at least the Reds wouldn’t be hamstrung with an astronomical, deadweight contract for long.
—Jason Williams, The Enquirer, 20 Apr. 2023
About 60 percent of the deadweight tonnage moved to front lines is gasoline and oil.
—Popular Mechanics Editors, Popular Mechanics, 6 June 2021
The interest rate increases so far, including Tuesday’s move, will add over A$900 a month in repayments to the average A$500,000 mortgage, according to RateCity, a deadweight for a population that holds A$2 trillion ($1.3 trillion) in home loans.
—Reuters, CNN, 7 Feb. 2023
What had seemed like a boon to our usecase ended up as a deadweight on our prospects – if investing all this money on autonomy only enabled us to clamor to fight for similar top line as incumbents, why even work on autonomy?
—Stefan Seltz-Axmacher, Forbes, 24 Jan. 2023
These examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'deadweight.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.
Dictionary Entries Near deadweight
Cite this Entry
“Deadweight.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/deadweight. Accessed 19 Apr. 2024.
Copy CitationKids Definition
deadweight
noun
dead·weight
ˈded-ˈwāt 
: the full weight of a mass that is not moving
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