blind alley vs dead-end

blind alley

noun

  • A course of inquiry that leads nowhere. 

  • Used other than figuratively or idiomatically: see blind, alley. A street or passageway that leads nowhere. 

dead-end

noun

  • A position that offers no hope of progress. 

  • A road with no exit. 

verb

  • To come to a dead-end. 

adj

  • Going nowhere; blocked. 

How often have the words blind alley and dead-end occurred in a corpus of books? (source: Google Ngram Viewer )