deadline
Looks like
A phone line that's gone dead?
Actually
The latest time or date by which something has to be done.
Origin
In US Civil War prison camps, a "deadline" was a line that prisoners were shot for crossing. No one knows for sure if that's how it came to mean a time limit, which newspapers were using by about 1920.
Disputed origin
Examples
- Is the deadline for the trip money this Friday or next?
- I missed the deadline to return the jacket, so now I'm stuck with it.
- Two more deadlines and I'll finally get my weekends back.