Dead ringer (idiom)

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".[1] [2]

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 appears to be a folk etymology.[1][2]

References
Look up dead ringer in Wiktionary, the free dictionary.
  1. Gary Martin. "A dead ringer". Phrase Finder. Retrieved 12 November 2016. Citing the Manitoba Free Press, October 1882.
  2. Emily Upton. "The origin of the phrase "dead ringer"". Today I Found Out. Retrieved 30 April 2022.
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