dead air
nounDefinition of dead air
: a period of silence especially during a broadcast
Examples of dead air in a Sentence
After the commercial, there were a few seconds of dead air before the show continued.
Recent Examples on the Web
The Coliseum is not a homer-happy ballpark because of its deep fences and dead air, but the A’s homer hitters are not intimidated. — Scott Ostler, SFChronicle.com, "New pitcher Puk and old ballpark give A’s big advantage," 21 Aug. 2019 With so many lulls in competitive play, the Thomas & Mack Center can quickly bounce between deafening chants for Tacko Fall, and dead air ripe for shouting at the All-Stars sitting courtside. — Jake Fischer, SI.com, "‘They Saw the Future.’ Clipper Darrell Relishes Kawhi Leonard, Paul George Blockbuster," 6 July 2019 Hold music is engineered to fill dead air and keep people on the line until help arrives. — Sumathi Reddy, WSJ, "CVS Hold Music Divides the Nation: ‘Enraging’ or ‘Hypnotizing’?," 24 July 2018 How many times did their censors have to give us dead air time because somebody was swearing? — Paul Daugherty, Cincinnati.com, "TML: USGA made its golf course the story, not its U.S. Open winner," 18 June 2018 And if broadcasting that dead air was, indeed, a mistake, somebody just tossed approximately $5 million in advertising cash out the window. — Eder Campuzano, OregonLive.com, "Super Bowl 2018: And the most talked-about commercial is ... dead air," 4 Feb. 2018 The on-stage costume changes also felt uncoordinated and led to moments of dead air. — Brandon T. Harden, Philly.com, "'¡Bienvenidos Blancos! or Welcome White People': A chaotic mix of identity, Cuban history and white privilege," 22 Apr. 2018 Kohn and Silverstein, who also cowrote the script, have a tenuous grasp of comedic timing, often leaving a vacuum of dead air inside which the actors flail. — Leah Pickett, Chicago Reader, "There's something ugly about I Feel Pretty," 20 Apr. 2018 On the flip side, a crappy edit can lead to dead air and thoughtless cuts that dull the impact of both the picture and the story. — Caroline Framke, Vox, "How sharp editing took Brooklyn Nine-Nine’s “The Box” from good to great," 2 Apr. 2018These example sentences are selected automatically from various online news sources to reflect current usage of the word 'dead air.' Views expressed in the examples do not represent the opinion of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback.
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