dead season—
1. (of holiday resorts, etc.) the time when there are very few guests:
- Since it was the dead season, the hotel beach wasn’t crowded at all.
2. a period without commercial, social, or intellectual activity:
- It was the dead season in London; every one of consequence was out of town.
dead time—time during which the active work is not going on:
- Machine owners strive to minimize the dead time by finetuning the control system.
Note: The expression does not correlate in meaning with the phrase dead on time—exactly at the expected or pre-arranged time:
- We arrived dead on time at Cape Town where we were met by Che in the arrivals hall.