Meanings
- idiomaticnot comparableSound asleep.
However, he slept right through the night, and was still dead to the world when I slipped out.
1919, Stewart Edward White, chapter 8, in The Killer - idiomaticnot comparableUnconscious.
Simon hit him from behind on the back of his head. The size of his punch was enough to knock even the toughest senseless. Simon's victim fell to the deck. . . . There he lay, dead to the world.
2010, David Harfield, Renaissance, →ISBN, page 509 - idiomaticnot comparableWithout social relationships or communication; without emotional or tangible bonds to others.
During two long weeks Tom lay a prisoner, dead to the world and its happenings.
1876, Mark Twain, chapter 22, in The Adventures of Tom Sawyer2 more examples
[D]id you think that a being so sequestered as I am was already dead to the world, even while he was walking upon its surface?
1824, Sir Walter Scott, chapter 2, in St. Ronan's WellThere were some broken men among these debtors who had been in jail so long, and were so miserable and destitute of friends, so dead to the world, and utterly forgotten and uncared for, that they implored their jailers not to set them free.
1841, Charles Dickens, chapter 67, in Barnaby Rudge
Synonyms & antonyms
Cite this entry
dead to the world. (n.d.). In WatkinsX Dictionary. Retrieved November 5, 2026, from https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/dead%20to%20the%20world
“dead to the world.” WatkinsX Dictionary, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/dead%20to%20the%20world. Accessed November 5, 2026.
WatkinsX Dictionary, s.v. “dead to the world,” accessed November 5, 2026, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/dead%20to%20the%20world.
Source: dead to the world on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.