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.
"Old Holingshed," says the Gradus ad Cantabrigiam, "in his Chronicles, describing Cambridge, speaks of 'certain censors, or deanes, appointed to looke to the behaviour and manner of the Students there, whom they punish very severely, if they make any default, according to the quantitye and qualitye of their trespasses.' When flagellation was enforced at the universities, the Deans were the ministers of vengeance."
At the present time, a person applying for admission to a college in the University of Cambridge, Eng., is examined by the Dean and the Head Lecturer. "The Dean is the presiding officer in chapel, and the only one whose presence there is indispensable. He oversees the markers' lists, pulls up the absentees, and receives their excuses. This office is no sinecure in a large college." At Oxford "the discipline of a college is administered by its head, and by an officer usually called Dean, though, in some colleges, known by other names."—Bristed's Five Years in an Eng. Univ., Ed. 2d, pp. 12, 16. Literary World, Vol. XII. p. 223.
In the older American colleges, whipping and cuffing were inflicted by a tutor, professor, or president; the latter, however, usually employed an agent for this purpose.
See under CORPORAL PUNISHMENT.
2. In the United States, a registrar of the faculty in some colleges, and especially in medical institutions.—Webster.
A dean may also be appointed by the Faculty of each Professional
School, if deemed expedient by the Corporation.—Laws Univ. at
Cam., Mass., 1848, p. 8.
3. The head or president of a college.
You rarely find yourself in a shop, or other place of public resort, with a Christ-Church-man, but he takes occasion, if young and frivolous, to talk loudly of the Dean, as an indirect expression of his own connection with this splendid college; the title of Dean being exclusively attached to the headship of Christ Church.—De Quincey's Life and Manners, p. 245.