D.D. An abbreviation of _Divinitatis Doctor_, Doctor in Divinity. At the University of Cambridge, England, this degree is conferred on a B.D. of five, or an M.A. of twelve years' standing. The exercises are one act, two opponencies, a clerum, and an English sermon. At Oxford it is given to a B.D. of four, or a regent M.A. of eleven years' standing. The exercises are three lectures. In American colleges this degree is honorary, and is conferred _pro meritis_ on those who are distinguished as theologians. DEAD. To be unable to recite; to be ignorant of the lesson; to declare one's self unprepared to recite. Be ready, in fine, to cut, to drink, to smoke, to _dead_.--_Oration before H.L. of I.O. of O.F._, 1848. I see our whole lodge desperately striving to _dead_, by doing that hardest of all work, nothing.--_Ibid._, 1849. _Transitively_; to cause one to fail in reciting. Said of a teacher who puzzles a scholar with difficult questions, and thereby causes him to fail. Have I been screwed, yea, _deaded_ morn and eve, Some dozen moons of this collegiate life, And not yet taught me to philosophize? _Harvardiana_, Vol. III. p. 255. DEAD. A complete failure; a declaration that one is not prepared to recite. One must stand up in the singleness of his ignorance to understand all the mysterious feelings connected with a _dead_.--_Harv. Reg._, p. 378. And fearful of the morrow's screw or _dead_, Takes book and candle underneath his bed. _Class Poem, by B.D. Winslow, at Harv. Coll._, 1835, p. 10. He, unmoved by Freshman's curses, Loves the _deads_ which Freshmen make.--_MS. Poem_. But oh! what aching heads had they! What _deads_ they perpetrated the succeeding day.--_Ibid._ It was formerly customary in many colleges, and is now in a few, to talk about "taking a dead." I have a most instinctive dread Of getting up to _take a dead_, Unworthy degradation!--_Harv. Reg._, p. 312. DEAD-SET. The same as a DEAD, which see. Now's the day and now's the hour; See approach Old Sikes's power; See the front of Logic lower; Screws, _dead-sets_, and fines.--_Rebelliad_, p. 52. Grose has this word in his Slang Dictionary, and defines it "a concerted scheme to defraud a person by gaming." "This phrase," says Bartlett, in his Dictionary of Americanisms, "seems to be taken from the lifeless attitude of a pointer in marking his game." "The lifeless attitude" seems to be the only point of resemblance between the above definitions, and the appearance of one who is _taking a dead set_. The word has of late years been displaced by the more general use of the word _dead_, with the same meaning. The phrase _to be at a dead-set_, implying a fixed state or condition which precludes further progress, is in general use. DEAN. An officer in each college of the universities in England, whose duties consist in the due preservation of the college discipline.