cul-de-sac

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See also: culdesac and cul de sac

English

English Wikipedia has an article on:
Wikipedia

Alternative forms

Etymology

Borrowed from French cul-de-sac, from cul (“bottom”) + de (“of”) + sac (“bag, sack”).

Pronunciation

Noun

cul-de-sac (plural cul-de-sacs or culs-de-sac)

  1. A blind alley or dead end street.
    • 1886 October – 1887 January, H[enry] Rider Haggard, She: A History of Adventure, London: Longmans, Green, and Co., published 1887, →OCLC:
      Before we had gone fifty yards we perceived that all hopes of getting further up the stream in the whale-boat were at an end, for not two hundred yards above where we had stopped were a succession of shallows and mudbanks, with not six inches of water over them. It was a watery cul de sac.
    • 1925 July – 1926 May, A[rthur] Conan Doyle, “(please specify the chapter number)”, in The Land of Mist (eBook no. 0601351h.html), Australia: Project Gutenberg Australia, published April 2019:
      His was the end house of a cul-de-sac, with the side wall of a huge brewery beyond.
  2. A circular area at the end of a dead end street to allow cars to turn around, designed so children can play on the street, with little or no through-traffic.
    • 2010 January 17, Cara Buckley, “A Suburban Treasure, Left to Die”, in New York Times, page Section MB; Column 0; Metropolitan Desk; Pg. 1:
      And in suburbs known for new development, preservationists are often battling a general perception that there is nothing historic or worth saving among the cul-de-sacs.
  3. (figurative) An impasse.
    • 2005 February 14, National Review:
      Physics seems, in fact, to have got itself into a cul-de-sac, obsessing over theories so mathematically abstruse that nobody even knows how to test them.
    • 2022 June 3, Günseli Yalcinkaya, quoting Mat Dryhurst, “Are you content? How the internet rewired our brains”, in Dazed‎, archived from the original on 2022-12-16:
      The internet is a remarkable tool to find others and coordinate, but as an end to itself can become a cul de sac of frustrated desires and circular arguments.
  4. (medicine) A sack-like cavity, a tube open at one end only.

Translations

blind alley — see dead end
impasse — see impasse

See also

Catalan

Catalan Wikipedia has an article on:
Wikipedia ca

Etymology

Borrowing from French cul-de-sac, from cul (“bottom”) + de (“of”) + sac (“bag, sack”).

Pronunciation

Noun

cul-de-sac m (plural cul-de-sacs)

  1. cul-de-sac
    Synonyms: atzucac, carreró sense sortida, carreró sense eixida

Further reading

French

French Wikipedia has an article on:
Wikipedia fr

Pronunciation

Noun

cul-de-sac m (plural culs-de-sac)

  1. dead end, cul-de-sac (a path that goes nowhere)
  2. impasse

Descendants

  • → English: cul-de-sac

Further reading

Portuguese

Pronunciation

 
  • (Brazil) IPA(key): /ˌkuw.d͡ʒiˈsa.ki/ , /ˌkuw.d͡ʒiˈsak/
    • (Southern Brazil) IPA(key): /ˌkuw.deˈsak/ , /ˌkuw.deˈsa.ki/
 

Noun

cul-de-sac m (plural culs-de-sac or cul-de-sacs or cul-de-sac)

  1. cul-de-sac; blind alley (street that leads nowhere)
    Synonyms: rua sem saída, beco sem saída
  2. cul-de-sac (circular area at the end of a dead end street)
  3. (figurative) cul-de-sac; dead end; impasse
    Synonyms: impasse, beco sem saída
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