cul-de-sac

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

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

• Audio (US)

  (file)

• (UK) IPA^(key): /ˈkʌldəsak/

cul-de-sac (plural cul-de-sacs or culs-de-sac)

1. A blind alley or dead end street.
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.

• IPA^(key): /ky.d(ə).sak/

• Audio (Paris)

  (file)

cul-de-sac m (plural culs-de-sac)

1. dead end, cul-de-sac (a path that goes nowhere)
2. impasse

• “cul-de-sac” in le Trésor de la langue française informatisé (The Digitized Treasury of the French Language).

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)
2. cul-de-sac (circular area at the end of a dead end street)
3. (figuratively) cul-de-sac; dead end; impasse

• (blind alley): rua sem saída, beco sem saída
• (impasse): impasse, beco sem saída