What does the term "dead ringer" mean?

Question

What does the term "dead ringer" mean?

Answer 1

Someone who looks awfully like someone else is a dead ringer for them

eg:  I saw a bloke the other day who's a dead ringer for my boy friend

Answer 2

The term ('dead ringer') means to ('Lookalike')

"My boyfriends a (dead ringer) for (Tom Cruise)"

" My Wife is a ('Dead Ringer') for ('Madonna').

Cheers : )

P.S: here is a link to the metaphor.

http://www.phrases.org.uk/meanings/dead%...

Copy and paste it, in to your address bar.

Cheers : )

Answer 3

I don't know... my poor English sends me to a man burried with his cellphone in his coffin, lol

Answer 4

A Doppelganger.

Answer 5

I've been told it means that something is very much the same as something else...

Example, when someone says you're a dead ringer for ur father or whatever... they mean that you're a lot like him. The term is usually used when referring to people, hardly ever used to compare objects.

Answer 6

A ringer was originally a race horse which looked similar enough to another to pass for it in a race.

A not very good horse would be entered in a race and a much better 'ringer' would be substituted for it. This would enable those in the know to bet large sums at very good odds.

A 'dead ringer' was a horse which looked almost exactly the same as another. An even better match.

Answer 7

someone you can tease easily

Answer 8

The term is often (wrongly) related to an old English fear that you might be buried alive. After exhuming a number of coffins and finding scratch marks on the inside of 1 in 25 of them, it was realised that many people were not quite dead when they were buried. Cemetaries started tying a string around the wrist of the corpse which was attached to a bell on top of the grave. If the bell rang, the graveyard employees had to dig it up and find out whether there was anyone alive in it. They even had to employ someone to stay there all night and listen for bells (thus the phrase 'graveyard shift').

Because of the above, some sources will say that the popular phrase 'dead ringer' implies that you look like a particular person, returned to life. That's not quite right. A ringer is another word for impostor. It's often used to describe a professional athlete competing in amateur competitions, or a talented racing horse disguised as another so it can win the race easily. A 'dead ringer' is an impostor whose impersonation is 'dead on' perfect. The old graveyard fears have nothing to do with it as far as I know.

So -- a 'dead ringer' is a perfect impostor, or someone who bears a perfect resemblance to someone else.

Hope that explains it.

Answer 9

Supermin has the correct usage.

It has become common to use the "lookalike" meaning, but it is not quite correct because it is not acknowledging that there is "intent to deceive" in the original use of the term.