I guess there are different flavors of deadlift.
Bending your knees or stiff leg, and some others.
It is basically taking a barbell with weight on it bending over at the waist, bending your knees and lowering the weight to your shins. Then you lift the weight by straigtening your knees and then standing up straight. You can keep your knees straight and just bend at the waist and lower the bar to your shins. I stand on a platform to be able to lower the bar further.
There are sites that have pictures on how to do it.