0 an activity or process that is not at all effective or successful:
Other developments, after costing a lot of money, have ended in dead loss.
As a propagandist, he is a dead loss.
Television is a dead loss to the exhibitors, but it is a considerable help to the producers.
To agree to anything of that kind means to me a dead loss at once.
The old-fashioned idea of putting in a manager and bringing in third-rate touring companies is a dead loss.
That was a dead loss to the farmer of a life's work.
However, this short-lived experiment should not be written off as a dead loss.
At the present moment the money is a dead loss.
