Roget's 21st Century Thesaurus, Third Edition Copyright © 2013 by the
Philip Lief Group.
EXAMPLES FROM THE WEB FOR DEADBEAT
I knew you looked a deadbeat, but Id no idea I was quite so bad, he said.
The bartender, accepting the situation as generally inclusive, put his hands up along with his deadbeat patrons.
The sparrow was deadbeat, and was travelling slowly to the north and west on a zigzag course, about two hundred feet high.
WORD ORIGIN
"worthless sponging idler," 1863, American English slang, perhaps originally Civil War slang, from dead (adj.) + beat. Earlier used colloquially as an adjectival expression to mean "completely beaten" (1821), and perhaps the base notion is of "worn out, good for nothing." It is noted in a British source from 1861 as a term for "a pensioner."
It also was used of a kind of regulating mechanism in pendulum clocks.
MORE RELATED WORDS FOR DEADBEAT
beggar
nounperson asking for charitydelinquent
nouncriminal, often youngdo-nothing
nounlazy personfailure
nounperson who does not succeedRoget's 21st Century Thesaurus, Third Edition Copyright © 2013 by the
Philip Lief Group.