subs. phr. (common).—1. An empty bottle: said also to bear Moll Thompson’s mark (i.e., M.T. = empty).
ENGLISH SYNONYMS.—Camp-candlestick; fellow-commoner; corpse; dummy; dead marine; dead recruit; dead ’un.
FRENCH SYNONYMS.—Une fillette (= a half-bottle); un corps mort (popular: literally, a corpse; une négresse morte (popular: a reference to color as well as condition).
1738. SWIFT, Polite Conversation, Dial. 3. Ld. S. Come, John, bring us a fresh bottle. Col. Ay, my lord; and pray, let him carry off the DEAD MEN, as we say in the army [meaning the empty bottles].
1825. C. M. WESTMACOTT, The English Spy, vol I., p. 152. On the right was the sleeping room and at the foot of a neat French bed, I could perceive the wine bin, surrounded by a regiment of DEAD MEN (empty bottles).
1853. REV. E. BRADLEY (‘Cuthbert Bede’), The Adventures of Mr. Verdant Green, an Oxford Freshman, pt. I., p. 59. Talk of the pleasures of the dead languages, indeed! why, how many jolly nights have you and I, Larkyns, passed ‘down among the DEAD MEN!’
1871. London Figaro, 15 April. We knew that, in practical use, imperials were inconvenient and wasteful; and that, moreover, it was far from easy to dispose of their corpses when they became DEAD MEN.
1879. M. E. BRADDON, Vixen, ch. viii. And added more DEAD MEN to the formidable corps of tall hock bottles, dressed in uniform brown, which the astonished butler ranged rank and file in a lobby outside the dining-room.
1888. ZOLA, ‘Translation of L’Assommoir, ch. vii., p. 208. In a corner of the shop, the heap of DEAD MEN increased, a cemetery of bottles.
2. (bakers’).—A loaf, overcharged, or marked down though not delivered. In London, DEAD ’UN is a popular term for a half-quartern loaf. Also, by implication, a baker.
1819. T. MOORE, Tom Crib’s Memorial to Congress, p. 16. DEAD MEN are Bakers—so called from the loaves falsely charged to their master’s customers.
3. (tailors’).—In pl. Misfits; hence, a scarecrow.
