blind alley

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blind alley

1. An alley or passage that is closed at one end.

2. A mistaken, unproductive undertaking.

American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright © 2016 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

blind alley

1. an alley open at one end only; cul-de-sac

2. informal a situation in which no further progress can be made

Collins English Dictionary – Complete and Unabridged, 12th Edition 2014 © HarperCollins Publishers 1991, 1994, 1998, 2000, 2003, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2011, 2014

blind′ al′ley

1. a roadway that is open at only one end.

2. a situation or path offering no help, opportunity, or reward.

[1575–85]

ThesaurusAntonymsRelated WordsSynonymsLegend:

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Noun	1.	blind alley - a street with only one way in or out dead-end street, impasse, cul de sac thoroughfare - a public road from one place to another
	2.	blind alley - (figurative) a course of action that is unproductive and offers no hope of improvement; "all the clues led the police into blind alleys"; "so far every road that we've been down has turned out to be a blind alley" course of action, course - a mode of action; "if you persist in that course you will surely fail"; "once a nation is embarked on a course of action it becomes extremely difficult for any retraction to take place" figure of speech, trope, image, figure - language used in a figurative or nonliteral sense

blind alley

noun

A course leading nowhere:

cul-de-sac, dead end.

Translations

طَريٌ مَسْدود

slepá ulička

blindgydevildspor

Sackgasse

impasse

zsákutca

blindgata

angiporto vicolo cieco

blindgate blindvei

slepá ulička

çıkmazçözümü olmayan sorun

死胡同绝路

blind alley

n → vicolo cieco

Collins Italian Dictionary 1st Edition © HarperCollins Publishers 1995

blind

(blaind) adjective

1. not able to see. a blind man.

2. (with to) unable to notice. She is blind to his faults.

3. hiding what is beyond. a blind corner.

4. of or for blind people. a blind school.

noun

1. (often in plural) a screen to prevent light coming through a window etc. The sunlight is too bright – pull down the blinds!

2. something intended to mislead or deceive. He did that as a blind.

verb

to make blind. He was blinded in the war.

ˈblinding adjective

1. tending to make blind. a blinding light.

2. sudden. He realized, in a blinding flash, that she was the murderer.

ˈblindly adverb

ˈblindness noun

blind alley

a situation without any way out. This is a blind alley of a job.

ˈblindfold noun

a piece of cloth etc put over the eyes to prevent someone from seeing. The kidnappers put a blindfold over the child's eyes.

verb

to put a blindfold on (some person or animal).

adjective, adverb

with the eyes covered by a cloth etc. She came blindfold into the room.

blind spot

1. any matter about which one always shows lack of understanding. She seems to have a blind spot about physics.

2. an area which is impossible or difficult to see due to an obstruction.

the blind leading the blind

one inexperienced or incompetent person telling another about something. My teaching you about politics will be a case of the blind leading the blind.

References in classic literature ?

Offenders against the revenue laws, and defaulters to excise or customs who had incurred fines which they were unable to pay, were supposed to be incarcerated behind an iron-plated door closing up a second prison, consisting of a strong cell or two, and a blind alley some yard and a half wide, which formed the mysterious termination of the very limited skittle-ground in which the Marshalsea debtors bowled down their troubles.

Supposed to be incarcerated there, because the time had rather outgrown the strong cells and the blind alley. In practice they had come to be considered a little too bad, though in theory they were quite as good as ever; which may be observed to be the case at the present day with other cells that are not at all strong, and with other blind alleys that are stone-blind.

View in context

"Her father shall pay me for it doubly: with his purse and with his life." With that thought in his heart, Richard Turlington wound his way through the streets by the river-side, and stopped at a blind alley called Green Anchor Lane, infamous to this day as the chosen resort of the most abandoned wretches whom London can produce.

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And he did not like it when the process of reasoning brought him into a blind alley. That was the only thing he disliked, and avoided by changing the conversation to something agreeable and amusing.

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It stopped one end of the glen or hollow like a blind alley; and it looked like the end of the world.

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We interviewed also through a grating in a mud wall closing a blind alley an immensely corpulent Ital ian, who, the ex-sergeant-major remarked to me perfunctorily, had "killed another man last year." Thereupon he addressed him as "Antonio" and "Old Buck," though that bloated carcase, appar ently more than half filling the sort of cell where in it sat, recalled rather a fat pig in a stye.

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I could have told him from the beginning that this obsession of his over the coffee was bound to end in a blind alley, but I restrained my tongue.

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Saillard's salary from the government had always been four thousand five hundred francs a year, and no more; his situation was a blind alley that led nowhere, and had tempted no one to supersede him.

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The rat starts running down the passages, and is constantly stopped by blind alleys, but at last, by persistent attempts, it gets out.

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He said that the government had pushed the country's politics into a blind alley which showed its failure.

PM should take parliament into confidence on his US visit : JI

TAXILA -- Former interior minister Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan on Saturday said the PTI government was heading towards a blind alley due to its poor policies and lack of direction.

PTI govt heading towards a blind alley, says Nisar

Political leaders who play with your lives and just lead you from one blind alley to another.