How to spell deadline

hear itdead·line/'dɛd,laɪn/nounPrefixes and work

What it means: The time by which something must be done.

In a sentence: The teacher set a deadline for our drawing project.

The part people get wrong

Often misspelled as dateline or deadeline.

Same family: deadlines, meet-a-deadline, miss-a-deadline, tight-deadline, extend-the-deadline. If you can spell one, the shared part carries to the others.

Where it comes from: The word “deadline” was first used in the 19th century to describe a physical line around a prison that prisoners would be shot for crossing. Over time, its meaning shifted to the ‘line in time’ you must not cross—your final time limit.

Patterns it uses: Drop the e before a suffix?

Try spelling it

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Words like this

part-time · mid-year · mid-term · out-of-date · self-esteem · ex-wife · one-hundred · overtime

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