dead duck

English

dead duck (plural dead ducks)

(idiomatic) One who is in serious danger or trouble.
She's a dead duck if she starts flirting with my boyfriend!
(idiomatic) A project that is doomed to failure from the start.
The government decision meant that the proposed boycott of South African goods was a dead duck.
- 1962 June, “Letters to the Editor: Diesel suburban services in Bristol”, in Modern Railways, page 430:
  The "most important suburban line—to Clifton Down, Avonmouth Dock and Severn Beach" has, I fear, been a dead duck for years. (It still exists in 2021)
- 2012 May 9, John Percy, “Birmingham City 2 Blackpool 2 (2–3 on agg): match report”, in The Daily Telegraph‎, London, archived from the original on 8 April 2016:
  They may have finished 11 points behind West Ham and lost both league games, conceding eight goals, but the Tangerine dream remains alive. Holloway said: “We won’t get a bigger test than West Ham but we’ve got one chance. If you’d asked me last summer when I lost all those players I’d have said this was a dead duck, but we don’t lie down at this club.”

person or project that is in serious trouble or doomed to fail

Catalan: ser home mort (to be a dead man)
Finnish: tuhoon tuomittu hanke
French: être fait comme un rat (fr)
Russian: поко́йник (ru) m (pokójnik), труп (ru) m (trup) (of a person, dead man), до́хлый но́мер (ru) m (dóxlyj nómer) (of a project)
Spanish: ser hombre muerto