What it means
Dead weight is a person or thing that contributes nothing and makes everyone else do the hauling. You use it for coworkers, teammates, projects, old systems, any bit of baggage that just sits there slowing the whole thing down. It's blunt and pretty harsh, so people usually say it when they're fed up.
Usage examples
"We keep doing his tasks and he still takes credit. At this point he’s dead weight, mate, either step up or let the rest crack on."
"On the group project Sam was complete dead weight, came to one meeting, ate the snacks, vanished for two weeks and put his name on the slides anyway."
"The old reporting system became dead weight after we moved everything to the new platform, but no one wanted to be the person who pulled the plug on it."
"We can't keep dragging this app update around forever, half the features are dead weight and everybody knows it."
"He turns up late, dodges the boring jobs, then acts managerial in the recap. Pure dead weight, honestly."
Where it comes from
It starts with the literal phrase for a load that has to be carried, especially in shipping, transport, and engineering. From there English stretched it into a figurative dig at people, projects, or systems that add burden without adding help. That metaphor's been around for ages and still lands hard.
