deadheader

One who removes the dead remains of blossoms from plants.

Instead, she is a weeder, actually for enjoyment ("That's when I get some of my best thinking done"), a keen harvester of flowers for the house, and a merciless deadheader of perennials in the autumn.

Take care if deadheading in the evening when the flowers have just folded down as bees seem to enjoy resting in them at this time and may give the deadheader a stinging surprise.

A non-paying passenger.

There's company rules against riders. I told him tonight he's gonna have a deadheader; all he wanted to know was you gonna have coffee money.

A septuagenarian deadheader? A senior citizen stowaway? Unlikely.

A scheduled trip to move a vehicle that has no cargo and no passengers.

From Granite City, I think it was, we rode a deadheader to Minneapolis.

Next to the cash register, a bulletin board was thumbtacked with notes from deadheaders who needed loads heading west, and shippers looking for a reefer (refrigerated truck) going down to Florida.

One who does not work very hard at their job.

...were always the "infamous machine" or the "bosses' candidate" or the "payroll deadheaders and racketeers."

If before the war better-skilled smeltermen had little recourse against deadheaders, during the war they joined with foremen, itself a telling alliance, in using patriotic expectations to discipline those they believed were illegitimate deadheaders.

A racing pigeon that will not leave when released.

Don does this to catch "Deadheaders" - birds which circle the wrong way and won't leave the release site. By his precise records, Don can remove deadheaders by a process of elimination.