Dead ringer is an idiom in English. It means "an exact duplicate" or "100% duplicate", and derives from 19th-century horse-racing slang for a horse presented "under a false name and pedigree"; "ringer" was a late nineteenth-century term for a duplicate, usually with implications of dishonesty, and "dead" in this case means "precise", as in "dead centre".
The term is sometimes said to derive, like "saved by the bell", from a custom of providing a cord in coffins for someone who has been buried alive to ring a bell to call for help, but this is a folk etymology.
References
- ^ Gary Martin. "A dead ringer". Phrase Finder. Retrieved 12 November 2016. Citing the Manitoba Free Press, October 1882.
- ^ Emily Upton. "The origin of the phrase "dead ringer"". Today I Found Out. Retrieved 30 April 2022.
- Wilton, David (November 2008). Word Myths: Debunking Linguistic Urban Legends. Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-537557-2.
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