deadweight

Imagine trying to run a race with a heavy backpack full of rocks. That backpack is deadweight—it slows you down and doesn’t help you at all. In everyday English, we use it for a person, thing, or task that adds weight, cost, or trouble without giving much back. A failing project that keeps taking money and time can feel like deadweight. An employee who never contributes may be called deadweight. The idea is simple: it’s something you’re carrying around that makes progress harder, and you’d be better off without it.

At its core, deadweight is “heavy weight that doesn’t do anything for you.” It can be literal or figurative.

In literal use, it can mean the full, unrelieved weight of something that can’t support itself or help you carry it—like the deadweight of a couch when you’re moving it, or the deadweight of a person you’re trying to lift. In transport, deadweight can also be a technical term: in shipping, “deadweight” (as in deadweight tonnage) is a measure of how much weight a ship can safely carry, including cargo, fuel, water, stores, crew, and passengers.

You might hear it used in everyday conversation: "The old computer was just deadweight, slowing down our entire system." Or, "That extra meeting felt like deadweight—a waste of everyone's time." It implies something is not only unnecessary but actively detrimental.

In business or politics, you may also see it in the phrase deadweight loss: a loss that happens when rules or taxes cause fewer useful trades or deals to happen, so value disappears instead of going to anyone.

So, if something is holding you back without offering much value, it’s likely deadweight—and probably best to drop if you can.