cul-de-sac
/ˈkʌldəˌsak
/ /ˈkʊldəˌsak/noun (plural culs-de-sac or cul-de-sacs pronounced same or /ˈkʌldəˌsaks/ /ˈkʊldəˌsaks/)
1A street or passage closed at one end.Even working waste collection vehicles could not negotiate many back streets and cul-de-sacs for fear of losing their grip on the road while turning....
- Although Winterscale Street is a cul-de-sac, highway officials admit they have no safety concerns which would warrant refusal.
- And they know it's your car because they know you and they know you because your street is a cul-de-sac and strangers have little reason to walk through it.
Synonyms
no through road, blind alley, dead end
1.1A route or course leading nowhere: was the new post a career cul-de-sac?...
- They were ultimately led by a man who was stuck in a political cul-de-sac as claustrophobic as the compound in which he was effectively imprisoned for the past two years.
- A word to the wise: a policy to reintroduce traffic to the footstreets is a political cul-de-sac.
- How could such euphoria and triumphalism end only two years later in the political cul-de-sac of voter apathy?
1.2 Anatomy A vessel, tube, or sac open at only one end.The inside of the appendix forms a cul-de-sac that usually opens into the large intestine....
- It is performed by first drying the tear film, then inserting a Schirmer strip into the lower conjunctival cul-de-sac toward the temporal aspect of the lower lid.
- The surgeon performed a physical examination and noted extreme tenderness in the posterior uterine cul-de-sac upon pelvic examination.
Origin
Mid 18th century (originally in anatomy): French, literally 'bottom of a sack'.