dead drop
5
9.3
- noun
- /dɛd drɑp/
- Jargon
:
punto de entrega
- Well, it seems almost quaint now, but those beautiful tree-lined Soviet-era expanses were also the places where my father would come to deliver and receive the "dead drops" that kept him in touch with the agents he was running.
I made a dead drop once that was so wonderful.
- I made a dead drop once that was so wonderful.
Examples
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I made a dead drop once that was so wonderful.
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"The cash is at a dead drop," Starlitz said.
Fiction book (1996) -
The old CIA/KGB dead drop downtown?
Blog text (34) -
A "dead drop," for instance, was the secret placement of an important document, money, or other valuable information in a public place that both agent and officer.
Blog text (23) -
There was a dead drop in a café in Luxembourg.
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The agents agreed to use a dead drop to share crucial information without meeting face-to-face.
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After weeks of surveillance, she finally located the dead drop hidden behind the park bench.
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He retrieved the document from the dead drop without raising any suspicions.
Synonyms
123
8.8
A secret place where illegal goods are left for pick up
Surface Forms
Morphology
The sense is partially derivable: 'drop' can denote a place to leave or hand off something and 'dead' conveys unmanned/inactive, so a B1 learner who knows both words could plausibly infer a location where items are left without a meeting. However, the phrase is specialized spycraft jargon and the exact covert-exchange sense is not fully predictable from everyday uses of the constituents, so prior exposure or context is usually needed.
Etymology
Dead drop comes from spy work. An agent would leave a message or package in a hidden spot called a drop and then walk away so there was no meeting and the item was left 'dead', meaning no contact, so dead drop means 'a secret place to exchange information without meeting'.