Learn English – Origin of the term “deadeye” meaning “expert marksman”

etymology

The term deadeye means

(informal, chiefly North American) An expert marksman

Oxford Dictionaries Online

(There is an apparently unrelated sense of the term referring to a specific type of nautical block.)

Numerous other online dictionaries give nearly identical meanings, and a few also list it as an adjective with an equivalent meaning. But none of these sources give an etymology.

A search on etymonline.com gives no results.

A quick review of ngrams shows the term being used as a name or nickname as early as 1829 and a character known as Dick Deadeye appears in Gilbert and Sullivan’s HMS Pinafore, but none of these 19th century cites seem to relate to a marksmanship characteristic.

There also seems to be a series of dime novels featuring Deadeye Dick, but I cannot find any text to indicate if the name is associated with a sharpshooting skill.

So, can anyone assist with the origin of the term deadeye to mean marksman?

Best Answer

I think this is related to the phrase "dead on," which is also used in marksmanship and comes from the fact that what makes a shot successful is often that it's fatal.

OED has:

Quite certain, sure, unerring. (Cf. dead certainty in sense A. 31a.) dead shot, one whose aim is certain death; so dead on the bird. dead-on: certain, unerring, exactly right (see quot. 1889). See also dead-hand n. 2.

a1592 R. Greene Sc. Hist. Iames IV (1598) iii. sig. F, I am dead at a pocket sir..I can..picke a purse assoone as any theefe in my countrie.

1681 J. Chetham Angler's Vade Mecum x. 74 It's a dead bait for a Trout.

1776 F. Marion in Harper's Mag. Sept. (1883) 547/2: It was so dead a shot they none of them said a word.

1830 M. R. Mitford Our Village IV. 42: A silent, stupid, and respectable country gentleman, a dead vote on one side of the House.

1853 Dickens Bleak House xxvi. 261: With a gun in his hand, with much of the air of a dead shot.

1874 G. W. Dasent Half a Life II. 227 Those who do so..are almost always dead plucks.

1889 A. Barrère & C. G. Leland Dict. Slang I. 300/2: Dead-on (riflemen), straight on. A rifle-shot talks of the aiming being dead-on when the day is so calm that he can aim straight at the bull's eye instead of having to allow to the right or left for wind. He is said to be dead-on himself when he is shooting very well.

1959 Punch 17 June 815/1: She sang all night with pure, dead-on tone.

1966 ‘K. Nicholson’ Hook, Line & Sinker ix. 102: Don't you think a gesture like this is simply dead-on, when it comes to showing how with-it the Church is today?

For dead-hand:

  1. colloq. An expert (at doing something).

1848 Thackeray Bk. Snobs vii. 31: He is a dead hand at piquet.

1862 G. O. Trevelyan Interludes in Verse & Prose (1905) 181: A young member of the Secretariat, a dead hand at a minute.

1888 ‘R. Boldrewood’ Robbery under Arms I. xv. 194: First-rate work it was, too; he was always a dead hand at splitting.

It seems like "dead-eyed" is a variant of "sure-eyed" using this sense of 'dead.'

Edit- Just to make this explicit: skilled marksmen are often referred to as "sure-eyed," "keen-eyed," "true-eyed," etc. because of the importance of vision in getting a good shot.

Edit 2: Bib asked how 'dead' came to mean 'total' or 'exact.' The 'quite certain, sure, unerring' sense I quoted first says cf. dead certainty in sense A. 31a, which is

Absolute, complete, entire, thorough, downright. Also dead-earnest in adj. use.

[Arising out of various earlier senses.]

1660 R. Sharrock Hist. Veg. 20 Till the seed..be come to a full and dead ripenesse.

1766 O. Goldsmith Vicar of Wakefield I. xii. 119, I had them a dead bargain.

1805 Scott Let. 12 Apr. (1932) I. 248 This is a dead secret.

1842 S. Kettell Quozziana 47, I saw, to a dead certainty, that if I should..be caught with my mouth open, I should be expected to say something. ...

The "various earlier senses" seem to be along the lines of 'completely still':

A.18:

Characterized by absence of physical activity, motion, or sound; profoundly quiet or still. (earliest 1548)

A.22:

Of water, air, etc.: Without motion or current; still, standing; (earliest a1000, a1552)

It is plausible to me that the sense involved in 'dead shot' arose fairly independently, though, because of the close connection between shooting accuracy and death.

This 1906 United Service Magazine has the earliest use of "dead eye" for a marksman I can find:

We all know what carnage can be inflicted if "the man behind the gun" will only keep himself cool and collected, alter his sights as the occasion requires, and aim with merely reasonable accuracy in the required direction. We do not require the "bull's eye shot" for this, but only a man who has been carefully drilled in the handling of his rifle, and can hit a third class target, say, at 500 yards. The Bisley marksman who can score twenty-six bull's-eyes running by the aid of verniers and wind-gauges is out of his element in war; our old friend the "dead eye," the marksman who makes such a wonderful score in the yearly courses, is little, if any, better than the much despised second- or third-class shot.

This early use of "dead eye" as someone who is really proficient at target shooting is really notable. It suggests to me that the term may be more closely connected to "bull's eye" than I expected—like "dead on the bull's eye" or "dead shot to the bull's eye."

Such an origin would also explain why I'm not finding any early "dead-eyed" references, which you'd expect if it came from "sure-eyed."

Edit: The use of "bull's eye shot" to refer to a person is also noteworthy: "We do not require the "bull's eye shot" for this, but only a man who has been carefully drilled..."

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