dead leg

dead leg (plural dead legs)

1. A blow to the upper thigh, crushing the muscle against the bone and crushing the nerve cluster next to the quadriceps. Also, the resulting injury.
   • 1994, Roddy Doyle, Paddy Clarke, ha-ha-ha, page 225:

     I kneed you, I said, and I gave him a dead leg.

   • 2009, Robert Twigger, Dr Ragab's Universal Language, →ISBN:

     Knowing all this it can still take you by surprise, like a dead leg or a sudden punch to the solar plexus.

   • 2011, Roger Garfitt, Horseman's Word: A Memoir, →ISBN, page 306:

     All at once something rose through the vacancy, the frightening void that was like the dead leg some kids had been adept at giving in the playground.

   • 2011, Lee Evans, The Life of Lee, →ISBN:

     I would also not have had the delight of receiving a shockingly painful random dead leg from Ben Coulter who, as I collapsed to my knees in agonizing pain, would laugh so hard, it would bring up a big blue vein that ran down his huge, dome-like forehead.

2. Alternative form of deadleg (isolated section of pipe with no outflow).
   • 2003, M.M. Chakrabarty, Chemistry and Technology of Oils & Fats, →ISBN, page 201:

     However, care has to be taken to prevent oily material congealing on the walls of pipes, tanks, pumps and other equipments where there are points of restrictions as valves, bends or dead legs.

   • 2006, Greenhouse Management & Production:

     Supply and return lines should not contain dead legs.

   • 2016, William V. Collentro, Pharmaceutical Water, →ISBN:

     The use of “deadended” systems, or systems with long dead legs, is unacceptable and will have a significant effect on both chemical quality and points-of-use bacteria levels

3. Used other than figuratively or idiomatically: see dead,‎ leg.

• deagled