dead and buried
In real, traceable use. Part of the curated seed collection; community review is coming.
Meaning · English
Over or irrevocably in the past.
Where it’s used:
Used
Widespread English
Examples
Mr McCormack said this did not mean the barrage project was dead and buried.
Oxford looked dead and buried until Pompey substitute Stuart Doling brought down John Durnin to allow Jim Magilton to cut the deficit to 5–4 from the penalty spot.
British National Corpus sentence via the MAGPIE corpus (CC BY 4.0, retrieved 2026-07-30)
Sources & notes
Listed on Wikipedia “Irreversible binomial” (CC BY-SA 4.0, retrieved 2026-07-29). Figurative class: Metaphor (PIE-English corpus, CC BY 4.0, retrieved 2026-07-31).
Common questions
What does “dead and buried” mean?
Over or irrevocably in the past.
Is “dead and buried” formal or informal?
No register label has been reviewed yet — treat it as neutral and check the usage notes above.