Dead air and Silence

Dead air

Dead air noun - An inadvertent interruption in a broadcast during which there is no sound.

Silence and dead air are semantically related In some cases you can use "Silence" instead a noun phrase "Dead air".

Silence

Silence noun - Incapacity for or restraint from speaking.

Dead air and silence are semantically related in speech topic. Sometimes you can use "Dead air" instead a noun "Silence".

Both terms in one sentence

  • Dead Air, the Truth in Television phenomenon of broadcast silence on the radio.
  • No radio program theatrically fakes dead air for nineteen seconds (the silence following the Grover's Mill massacre in Orson Welles' The War of the Worlds was only four or five seconds long).
  • The SNL producers face-palm over Kaufman's apparent stage fright and the resulting dead air, because Kaufman never told them that the awkward silence (and the awkward doing-nothing-while-waiting-for-his-cue) was the entire joke of the sketch.
    Source: Dead Air
Cite this Source
Silence and Dead air. (2016). Retrieved 2026, July 28, from https://thesaurus.plus/related/dead_air/silence
Dead air & Silence. N.p., 2016. Web. 28 Jul. 2026. <https://thesaurus.plus/related/dead_air/silence>.
Silence or Dead air. 2016. Accessed July 28, 2026. https://thesaurus.plus/related/dead_air/silence.
Google Ngram Viewer shows how "dead air" and "silence" have occurred on timeline