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Glite Dictionary
🪑 Useless people 🌳 Dead tree part
deadwood

deadwood

2 6.9
People in a group or company who are no longer useful
  • noun
  • /ˈdɛdˌwʊd/
  • Offensive
translation icon : lastre
  • During a recession, companies first try to cut costs by getting rid of the deadwood, automation, outsourcing, etc.
  • remove deadwood
  • deadwood workers

Examples

  • There's lots of deadwood in the intelligence community.

    Blog text (28)

  • The rest of the fraternity is deadwood.

    Blog text (18)

  • - Well, see, they were over budget... and they wanted to get rid of some of the deadwood.

    Hooper (1978)

  • Let's use it to get out, drop the deadwood, and start fresh.

    Blog text (9)

  • He'd have a lot of deadwood to clear out, new men to hire.

    Fiction book (1990)

  • The deadwood at the top at most stations chooses not to innovate.

    Blog text (24)

  • The merger really did purge the deadwood and result in more money for success-driven editors like Alice.

    Academic text (2002)

  • While not fully back from the brink yet, I believe that from what I see and hear coming out of the Tech Center, GM has cleaned out a lot of the old deadwood and is making strides in the right direction.

    Blog text (14)

  • A lot of good people get swept up in downsizing purges, and a surprising amount of deadwood would still remain (especially if the people in charge of the RIF are the deadwood).

    Blog text (15)

  • To improve efficiency, the company decided to eliminate some of the deadwood from its staff.

Synonyms

fifth wheel
vsdeadwood
  • Offensive
2 7.0

A person who feels left out when others are a couple

applies more broadly to people and things judged useless within organizations
dead wood
vsdeadwood
  • Offensive
1 6.5

People or parts of a company that do not help the work

is the same idea but usually written as one word

Antonyms

asset
770 3.5

A useful quality, skill, or person that helps someone succeed

valuable
526 2.5

Very useful and important, for example advice or skills

How Useful

asset
770 3.5
liability
95 5.7
deadwood
  • Offensive
2 6.9
deadweight
2 5.8

Surface Forms

deadwood singular
deadwoods plural

Morphology

deadwood = dead + wood (semi-transparent) = dead + wood

The compound formation is clear, but the figurative extension to 'redundant people or things' is a metaphorical shift not fully predictable from the literal meanings.

Etymology

Deadwood comes from the parts dead and wood, giving the picture of a dead branch that does not help a tree. So, deadwood is used for people or things in a group that are 'not useful' and are often removed to help the group move forward.