Analysis of the Intentional Semantic Shift may be regarded as an important means to understand the peculiarities of the ethnocultural potential of a language. This paper aims to consider the Intentional Semantic Shift in the ungradable adjective dead ' in the works of contemporary English-speaking writers. An attempt was made to describe different types of the new non-grammatical meaning resulting from the deliberate use of the ungradable adjective dead with the intensifiers too, very, so, a bit, a little and to analyze how the intentional use of the adjective dead in an alien grammatical context may reveal the specific perception of the concept ‘dead' in the English-speaking communities. The examples with the Intentional Semantic Shift in the adjective dead were taken from the British National Corpus and from the works of modern British, American and Australian writers. The ethnolinguistic analysis of the deliberate use of the ungradable adjective dead with intensifiers, such as so, such, very , etc. allows to conclude that the concept ‘dead' in the English-speaking communities need not always be viewed as terminative and unchangeable, it may be rethought, reinterpreted and sometimes mocked at. The Intentional Semantic Shift in the ungradable adjective dead may convey a range of emotions and result in additional non-grammatical meanings.