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dead letter

noun

Definitions

  1. An item of mail that cannot be delivered to its intended recipient

    An item of mail that cannot be delivered to its intended recipient; after some time it is returned to the sender, or destroyed.

  2. A law or other measure that is no longer enforced.

    • Laws are a dead letter, without courts to expound and define their true meaning and operation.
    • Playing-cards — the devil's picture-books — were hated by the Puritans like the very devil; […] The fine for selling these cards must have been a dead letter, for we find in the newspapers proof of the prevalence of card-playing.

  3. Anything that has lost its authority or influence despite still being in existence or…

    Anything that has lost its authority or influence despite still being in existence or formally in force.

The neighborhood

Derived

dead letter office

Vish — recursive loop

No curated loop yet for dead letter. Loops are being traced one word at a time while the ingestion pipeline matures.

sense glosses and etymology drawn from English Wiktionary · source · CC-BY-SA