cul-de-sac.

1. A street or passage with only one through entrance and a closed end.

2. A situation or line of inquiry that offers no way forward.

3. A pouch or cavity open at one end but closed at the other.

Use it for

Words that belong together

• a quiet cul-de-sac
• houses in a cul-de-sac

On the page

The quiet cul-de-sac ended at a wall higher than the houses.

She entered the cul-de-sac before realizing that no lane continued behind the last garden.

Usage notes

Primary category: setting. Forms: Singular cul-de-sac; plural culs-de-sac or cul-de-sacs. Legacy lexical fields mirror sense 1 only. Use numbered sense fields for all meanings.