cul-de-sac

cul-de-sac

See also: culdesac and cul de sac

English

Alternative forms

• culdesac, cul de sac

Etymology

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

Pronunciation

• (General American) IPA^(key): /ˈkʌldəsæk/

• Audio (US)

  (file)

• (UK) IPA^(key): /ˈkʌldəsak/

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 1167497017:

     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. 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.

4. (medicine) A sack-like cavity, a tube open at one end only.

Translations

blind alley — see dead end

circular area at the end of a dead end street

Chinese: Mandarin: 死衚衕／死胡同 (zh) (sǐhútòng), 死路 (zh) (sǐlù), 死巷 (zh) (sǐxiàng) Finnish: kääntöpaikka (fi) French: bout de cul-de-sac résidentiel m German: Wendeplatte f, Wendekreis (de) m, Wendehammer (de) m Latin: fundula f Macedonian: ќо́р-сокак m (ḱór-sokak) Norwegian: snuplass m Portuguese: cul-de-sac (pt) m Russian: тупик (ru) (tupik) Swedish: vändplats (sv) c

impasse — see impasse

medicine: a sacklike cavity or tube

Chinese: Mandarin: 陷凹 (zh) (xiàn'āo) Finnish: tasku (fi), pussi (fi) German: Tasche (de) f Greek: κόλπωμα (el) n (kólpoma) Icelandic: blindpoki m Portuguese: please add this translation if you can Russian: слепо́й мешо́к m (slepój mešók)

See also

• turning circle

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Catalan

Pronunciation

• (Balearic, Central) IPA^(key): /kul.dəˈsak/
• (Valencian) IPA^(key): /kul.deˈsak/

Noun

cul-de-sac m (plural cul-de-sacs)

1. cul-de-sac

   Synonym: atzucac

Further reading

• “cul-de-sac” in Diccionari de la llengua catalana, segona edició, Institut d’Estudis Catalans.

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French

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /ky.d(ə).sak/

• Audio (Paris)

  (file)

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

• “cul-de-sac”, in Trésor de la langue française informatisé [Digitized Treasury of the French Language], 2012.

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Portuguese

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