Deadweight, dead-weight or dead weight?

Question

If I were saying: 'I lifted her deadweight body up off the floor.'Would that be correct?Or is it two words or hyphenated?

Elanguest · Accepted Answer

I'm only seeing both deadweight (one word, no hyphen) and dead weight (two words, no hyphen) being used as nouns. I'm not finding it anywhere with a hyphen. I don't think you can use it as an adjective in any case. It doesn't sound right either.

Debbie292d · Answer

I would have to agree that deadweight is not an adjective and many other adjectives could be used instead in your sentence. If you like the expression, try rewording your sentence. When I lifted her body up off the floor, it was like dead weight.

I came upon this expression while doing transcription and that caused me to research this. The sentence was from a Judge in reference

I came upon this expression while doing transcription and that caused me to research this. The sentence was from a Judge in reference to a document in his file being mere "dead weight". Meaning, in this case, a useless addition of weight to his file. I don't believe it to be proper to use it as one word or hyphenated, rather two words with dead being the adjective and weight being the noun.

Deadweight, dead-weight or dead weight?

Top answer

Get the Weekly English Kit 📬

Related Questions