dead

Dead means no longer living. He has been dead for years, a dead tree, found dead.

The word is blunt, which is why English has so many softer alternatives — passed away, no longer with us — and why dead is what doctors, police and newspapers use. It extends to things that no longer work: a dead battery, a dead phone, the line went dead. In British English dead is also an intensifier meaning very: dead easy, dead right. Note dead end, dead heat, dead weight, and drop dead, and that deadline began as a line prisoners were shot for crossing.