Dictionary

dead-ender en · NOUN

Etymology

From dead end + -er.

Meanings

1. One who has no prospects for the future; a loser; a dropout.
2. One who still holds onto a political position or other viewpoint that is considered outdated or defeated.
   • In the first months after the fall of Baghdad, Rumsfeld and his aides still had a limited view of the insurgency, seeing it as little more than the work of Baathist "dead-enders," criminal gangs, and foreign terrorists who were Al Qaeda followers. 2004 05, Harold Wallace Ross, William Shawn, Tina Brown, David Remnick, Katharine Sergeant Angell White, Rea Irvin, Roger Angell, The New Yorker:
   • Unlike the ideological dead-enders, veterans of the Goldwater campaign, they didn't see much difference between Reagan and Ford—and, other things being equal, they were more inclined to side with the establishment than with the insurgency[…] 2015 August 11, Rick Perlstein, The Invisible Bridge: The Fall of Nixon and the Rise of Reagan, Simon and Schuster, →ISBN, page 734:

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