dead weight

1. 1.

   an oppressive encumbrance

   Broaderburden
2. 2.

   a heavy motionless weight

   Broaderweight

Questions about dead weight

What does dead weight mean?

dead weight means "an oppressive encumbrance". That is the primary sense; the word has 2 in total, listed in full on this page.

Is dead weight a common word?

dead weight is banded "Uncommon" — turns up in careful writing rather than conversation. The band comes from how often the word appears in a large corpus of everyday English, not from an editor's impression.