be, lie
His wife lay dead beside him.

look
play
The animal will sometimes escape danger by playing dead.

drop, fall, fall down
He just dropped dead one day at work.

shoot sb, strike sb
Gunmen shot dead two unarmed police officers.
She had been struck dead by lightning.

find sb
The woman was found dead with a rope around her neck.

declare sb, pronounce sb
She was declared dead on arrival at the hospital.

quite (esp. BrE)
I'm afraid he's quite dead.

almost, nearly
already
By the time the police arrived, he was already dead.

dead and buried (figurative)
In ten years he'll be dead and buried as a politician.

dead and gone
That won't happen until long after I'm dead and gone.

dead or alive
A reward was offered for his capture dead or alive.

more dead than alive
Poor child, she looks more dead than alive.

Dead is used with these nouns:
animal, battery, body, branch, brother, calm, cell, centre, corpse, father, flesh, flower, foliage, halt, heat, husband, language, leaf, man, mother, person, sheep, silence, sister, skin, sleep, snake, soldier, son, soul, standstill, tree, twig, uncle, weight, white, wife, wood, zone

Dead is used with these adjectives:
boring, calm, even, good, lucky, right, scared, set, sexy, silent, spooky, straight, tired, wrong

Dead is used with these verbs:
stop