Idioms: dead end
1. A passage that has no exit, as in This street's a dead end, so turn back. [Late 1800s]
2. An impasse or blind alley, allowing no progress to be made. For example, This job is a dead end; I'll never be able to advance. [c. 1920]
An end of a passage, such as a street or pipe, that affords no exit.
A point beyond which no movement or progress can be made; an impasse.
A course leading nowhere: blind alley, cul-de-sac.
Architecture: dead end
1. A length of pipe leading from a soil, waste, or vent pipe, building drain, or building sewer, which is terminated by a plug, cap, or other closed fitting; there is no circulation in this length of pipe, and no waste from a plumbing fixture is fed into it.
2. The point of fastening in a running rope system where the other end is fastened to a rope drum.
3. In concrete work, the end opposite that to which a load is applied.
4. A portion of a corridor in which the travel to an exit is in one direction only.
http://www.answers.com/dead%20end
Cul-de-sac, a street or alley that must be exited from the same point in which it is entered.
The name applied to the Manhattan streets in the East 50's that dead-ended at the East River before the Franklin D. Roosevelt Drive was built. This name was occasioned by the extreme poverty found there, and the crime that occurred as a result. This area was the inspiration for the films.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dead-end