Idiom
dead giveaway
Meaning
A giveaway that is especially obvious, especially ruinous, or both, disclosing, usually unintentionally, a fact or an intention.
Meaning adapted from Wiktionary, available under CC BY-SA 4.0.
Examples
“His nervous smile was a dead giveaway.”
“She tried to pretend she was not surprised, but her wide eyes were a dead giveaway.”
“The subtle tremor in his voice as he recounted the events served as a dead giveaway that he was hiding the truth.”
Examples
simple
“His nervous smile was a dead giveaway.”
contextual
“She tried to pretend she was not surprised, but her wide eyes were a dead giveaway.”
complex
“The subtle tremor in his voice as he recounted the events served as a dead giveaway that he was hiding the truth.”
Key words
Related idioms
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