colleges this degree is honorary, and is conferred _pro
meritis_ on those who are distinguished as theologians.

DEAD. To be unable to recite; to be ignorant of the lesson; to
declare one's self unprepared to recite.

Be ready, in fine, to cut, to drink, to smoke, to
_dead_.--_Oration before H.L. of I.O. of O.F._, 1848.

I see our whole lodge desperately striving to _dead_, by doing
that hardest of all work, nothing.--_Ibid._, 1849.

_Transitively_; to cause one to fail in reciting. Said of a
teacher who puzzles a scholar with difficult questions, and
thereby causes him to fail.

Have I been screwed, yea, _deaded_ morn and eve,
Some dozen moons of this collegiate life,
And not yet taught me to philosophize?
_Harvardiana_, Vol. III. p. 255.

DEAD. A complete failure; a declaration that one is not prepared
to recite.

One must stand up in the singleness of his ignorance to understand
all the mysterious feelings connected with a _dead_.--_Harv.
Reg._, p. 378.

And fearful of the morrow's screw or _dead_,
Takes book and candle underneath his bed.
_Class Poem, by B.D. Winslow, at Harv. Coll._, 1835, p. 10.

He, unmoved by Freshman's curses,
Loves the _deads_ which Freshmen make.--_MS. Poem_.

But oh! what aching heads had they!
What _deads_ they perpetrated the succeeding day.--_Ibid._

It was formerly customary in many colleges, and is now in a few,
to talk about "taking a dead."

I have a most instinctive dread
Of getting up to _take a dead_,
Unworthy degradation!--_Harv. Reg._, p. 312.

DEAD-SET. The same as a DEAD, which see.

Now's the day and now's the hour;
See approach Old Sikes's power;
See the front of Logic lower;
Screws, _dead-sets_, and fines.--_Rebelliad_, p. 52.

Grose has this word in his Slang Dictionary, and defines it "a
concerted scheme to defraud a person by gaming." "This phrase,"
says Bartlett, in his Dictionary of Americanisms, "seems to be
taken from the lifeless attitude of a pointer in marking his
game."

"The lifeless attitude" seems to be the only point of resemblance
between the above definitions, and the appearance of one who is
_taking a dead set_. The word has of late years been displaced by
the more general use of the word _dead_, with the same meaning.

The phrase _to be at a dead-set_, implying a fixed state or
condition which precludes further progress, is in general use.

DEAN. An officer in each college of