dead hand

plural dead hands

1. countableuncountableA residual undesirable influence from the past.

   I'll leave the very bad news to the end as it's outside the industry's control. Yes, the dead hand of the Department for Transport (DfT) still rules!

   2021 July 14, Barry Doe, “Flexi Seasons undermined by complicated calculations”, in RAIL, number 935, page 54

2. countableuncountablecard gamesA hand that is dealt but not used during a card game.
3. countableuncountableboard gamesA penalty where a player continues to take their turns, but can no longer win or make tile calls for the remainder of the hand.

1. A weapons system, implemented by the Soviet Union and by the Russian Federation as the successor state thereof, capable of closing a strategic nuclear strike control loop in the absence of normal command and control channels, analogous in concept to a dead man's switch, in anticipation of a decapitation strike.

   Near-synonyms: doomsday weapon, doomsday device, doomsday bomb

   2 more examples

   Sometimes people glibly speak as if the Dead Hand were a thing of the past, but it is foolhardy to assume so.

   The system may no longer be a central element of Russian strategy—US-based Russian arms expert Pavel Podvig calls it now "just another cog in the machine"—but Dead Hand is still armed.

   2009 September 21, Nicholas Thompson, “Inside the Apocalyptic Soviet Doomsday Machine”, in Wired, →ISSN

   Synonyms: doomsday weapon, doomsday device, doomsday bomb

2. Any such system, whether the cardinal instance (the Soviet/Russian one) or another.

   The talk then turned darkly to the prospects for building a Dead Hand of their own.