dead ringer
Someone or something that very closely resembles another; someone or something easily mistaken for another.
Meaning adapted from Wiktionary, available under CC BY-SA 4.0.
“That man is a dead ringer for my brother.”
“When she walked into the party, everyone stared because she was a dead ringer for a famous movie star.”
“I almost said hello to a stranger at the airport because he was a dead ringer for my old boss, right down to the glasses and the suit.”
“Although they were not related, the young actor was such a dead ringer for the historical figure that the director cast him immediately.”
The expression is a late 19th-century compound of dead, used here to signify absolute precision, and ringer. The latter term referred to a horse of superior quality substituted surreptitiously for a slower one in a race to deceive bookmakers. It is related to the practice of ringing the changes, an 18th-century method of substituting counterfeit coins for genuine ones during a transaction. The term had settled into the sporting lexicon by the 1880s to denote any person or object providing an exact, and often fraudulent, resemblance to another.
- 01
beat a dead horse
To persist or continue far beyond any purpose, interest or reason.
- 02
brown bread
[Cockney slang]dead
- 03
come back from the dead
To experience a resurgence after one's productive years are assumed to have ended.
- 04
dead 'n' buried
Contraction of dead and buried.
- 05
dead air
An unintended interruption in a broadcast during which nothing is transmitted: a silent period on radio or a silent period with no picture on television.
- 06
dead and buried
Of an issue, moot, passed, irrelevant, forgotten.
- 07
dead asleep
Sleeping in a deep sleep
- 08
dead cat bounce
A temporary recovery in the price of a financial instrument which has fallen rapidly and is expected to fall further in the long run.
Last updated August 10, 2026