Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- n. The act of dying; termination of life.
- n. The state of being dead.
- n. The cause of dying: Drugs were the death of him.
- n. A manner of dying: a heroine's death.
- n. A personification of the destroyer of life, usually represented as a skeleton holding a scythe.
- n. Bloodshed; murder.
- n. Execution.
- n. Law Civil death.
- n. The termination or extinction of something: the death of imperialism.
- idiom. at death's door Near to death; gravely ill or injured.
- idiom. be the death of To distress or irritate to an intolerable degree.
- idiom. death on Opposed to or strict about: Our boss is death on casual dressing.
- idiom. put to death To execute.
- idiom. to death To an intolerable degree; extremely: worried to death.
Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- n. Cessation of life; that state of a being, animal or vegetable, in which there is a total and permanent cessation of all the vital functions, In the abstract.
- n. Actual.
- n. Figurative or poetical.
- n. [In poetry and poetical prose death is often personified.
- n. A general mortality; a deadly plague; a fatal epidemic: as, the black death (which see, below).
- n. The cessation of life in a particular part of an organic body, as a bone.
- n. A skeleton, or the figure of a skeleton, as the symbol of mortality: as, a death's head.
- n. A cause, agent, or instrument of death.
- n. Imminent deadly peril.
- n. A capital offense; an offense punishable with death.
- n. The state or place of the dead.
- n. The mode or manner of dying.
- n. Something as dreadful as death.
- n. In Scripture: The reverse of spiritual life; the mere physical and sensuous life, without any activity of the spiritual or religious nature.
- n. After physical death, the final doom of those who have lived and died in separation from God and the divine life.
- n. A slaughtering or killing.
- n. To be passionately fond of; have a great liking or capacity for: as, he was death on the sherry.
- n. Mortally; to death.
- n. Synonyms Death, Decease, Demise. See decease.
Wiktionary
- n. The cessation of life and all associated processes; the end of an organism's existence as an entity independent from its environment and its return to an inert, nonliving state.
- n. often capitalized The personification of death as a hooded figure with a scythe; the Grim Reaper.
- n. The final part of something.
GNU Webster's 1913
- n. The cessation of all vital phenomena without capability of resuscitation, either in animals or plants.
- n. Total privation or loss; extinction; cessation.
- n. Manner of dying; act or state of passing from life.
- n. Cause of loss of life.
- n. Personified: The destroyer of life, -- conventionally represented as a skeleton with a scythe.
- n. Danger of death.
- n. Murder; murderous character.
- n. (Theol.) Loss of spiritual life.
- n. Anything so dreadful as to be like death.
WordNet 3.0
- n. the time when something ends
- n. a final state
- n. the absence of life or state of being dead
- n. the personification of death
- n. the permanent end of all life functions in an organism or part of an organism
- n. the event of dying or departure from life
- n. the time at which life ends; continuing until dead
- n. the act of killing
Etymologies
- From Middle English deeth, from Old English dēaþ, from Proto-Germanic *dauþuz (compare West Frisian dead, Dutch dood, German Tod, Swedish död), from Proto-Indo-European *dʰówtus. More at die. (Wiktionary)
- Middle English deeth, from Old English dēath; see dheu-2 in Indo-European roots. (American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition)
Examples
“Promoted to Headline (H3) on 8/21/09: On 'death panels,' 'socialized medicine' and other red herrings yahooBuzzArticleHeadline = 'On \'death panels, \' \'socialized medicine\ 'and other red herrings'; yahooBuzzArticleSummary = 'Article: Ain\'t it a shame our so-called liberal media is obsessed with "death panels" of fevered imaginations rather than death panels that exist in the real world, notably in our present health-care system?”
On 'death panels,' 'socialized medicine' and other red herrings
“He felt that he was dying -- "The taste of death," he said to his sister-in-law, "is already on my tongue -- _I taste death_; and who will be near to support my Constance if you go away?”
Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 62, Number 361, November, 1845.
“So in the next verse, "If he continue a day or two," his death is not to be avenged by the _death_ of the _master_, as in that case the crime was to be adjudged _manslaughter_, and not”
“So in the next verse, "If he continue a day or two," his death is not to be avenged by the _death_ of the _master_, as in that case the crime was to be adjudged _manslaughter_, and not _murder_.”
“So in the next verse -- "If he continues a day or two," his death shall not be avenged by the _death_ of the _master_, for in that case the crime was to be adjudged”
“Now, sir, he offers us nothing but unconditional submission to political death; and not political alone, but absolute _death_.”
“All the distresses growing out of inequalities in human condition; as wealth and power on one side, and poverty and weakness on the other, were terminated by death; the grave brought both to a level: the small and the great are there, and there, (that is, in the grave,) he adds, the servant is free from his master; made so, evidently, by _death_.”
“I'm going to shut this, and it's like the good-bye of death -- a mean and ugly -- _death_.”
“-- Comp. edwīt-līf. līf-bysig, adj. _ (striving for life or death), weary of life, in torment of death_: nom. sg.,”
“-- Comp. edwît-lîf. lîf-bysig, adj. _ (striving for life or death), weary of life, in torment of death_: nom. sg.,”
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘death’.
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1100
abound, technology, branch of knowled..., prognosticate, automaton, matron, an older married ..., realm, special field of ..., kingdom, annals, historical records and 981 more...
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Guide to the Perplexed
Lexicon of terms set forth in Maimonides 'Guide to the Perplexed'. A fascinating exercise in theosophy and translation if one substitutes these definitions for a "revised" reading of the Old Testa...
eye, apprehend, associations, air, ruah : or ruhoth,..., affection, attribute, approach, accidents, ascending, articulated, back and 119 more...
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Sweet tooth fairy dominoes
As originally suggested on sweet tooth fairy domino:
Each person adds one word trying to create a single, potentially infinite sweet tooth fairy (please look it up if you are not familiar wit...banana, boat, house, arrest, warrant, peace, sign, post, box, clever, Hans, device and 119 more...
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PHIL - vocabulary of thinking
philosophy, Socratic, dialogue, philosopher, Athenian, philosophical, politic, Greek, method, death, ancient, believe and 243 more...
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Interesting words
A list of words that are odd or words that I have looked up.
concupiscence, brize, scree, scoria, forestaff, spanaemia, valetudinarianism, distasture, pyrethrum, laudanum, gentian, bicameral and 11184 more...
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RELI - Genesis
Protagonists and relevant words in the Book of Creation (Source: King James Bible)
Laban, circumcise, beget, Esau, Rebekah, speckle, Sodom, Pharaoh, Canaanite, Canaan, Jacob, Lot and 1286 more...
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Words Associated With Jesus
Words that indentify Jesus and His Salvation to those who seek Him.
hope, grace, love, faith, salvation, truth, eternity, heaven, god, holy spirit, bible, scripture and 191 more...
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RELI - words with Biblical connotations
Words in the Bible evoking biblical stories or with special spiritual meaning. Proper names have been reduced to the minimum.
ark, judgement, holy, saint, baptism, spirit, love, eternal, altar, balsam, covenant, flood and 1115 more...
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EU Buzz - Lisbon Treaty
All words of the Lisbon Treaty
(Persons' names, foreign and grammatical words have been eliminated, MWEs have been split up into individual words. Capitalization has been retained if r...conferral, stateless, person, voting, right, subsidiarity, Latvia, Malta, Slovenia, Lithuania, Finland, Estonia and 2614 more...
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Describing People
eye, hair, mouth, nose, tooth, head, face, arm, hand, finger, lip, leg and 212 more...
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Time
clock, forever, never, ever, ago, when, then, now, past, present, future, timeline and 119 more...
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The Pain of Texting
Words that are a pain in the ass to type in on a numerical keypad on a cell phone because they have consecutive letters that share the same button:
2 - ABC
3 - DEF
4 - GHI...defcon, hi, no, attitude, xylophone, on, monday, monkey, mono, dig, back, babble and 212 more...
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list
hogwarts, dobby, wand, Ollivanders, nerds, frugal, voldemort, death, cloak, stone, ressurection, stone' and 2 more...
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Side effects may include...
Before you take that medication, you'd better read the warning label.
nausea, sweating, dizziness, dry mouth, drowsiness, vomiting, walking like an E..., spontaneous decap..., amnesia, anosmia, weltschmertz, flatulence and 68 more...
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Sardanapalian
sardanapalian, villain, breathe, legion, melt, death, juliet, dying, endless, breathtaking, devil, vis-à-vis and 13 more...
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Life
Life - the good, the bad, the joy, the hurt and the beautiful.
birth, death, laughing, crying, work, play, sleep, eat, family, friends, travel
Tweets
Looking for tweets for death.

sinnersavedbygrace “Death is not the greatest loss in life. The greatest loss is what dies inside us while we live.�?
Norman Cousins
Oct 26, 2009
PossibleUnderscore "He bathed my temples and his hands smelt like death."
-The Phantom of the Opera, Gaston Leroux
What on Earth does death smell like??? Jul 25, 2009
brobbins false opinions, severe illness Jul 22, 2009
myth In Peer Gynt, Death is known as the Button-Moulder. God commands him to melt Peer down to a button. Apr 20, 2009
lea “Be happy! There is so much to appreciate in this life, you can find good in all things! Even death, you have such fear over this subject. But just stop and look! Look and see that there is joy! The joy for the one who has past to another plane.�?
- A Duck in Inwood Hill Park,
New York City, 2007, via Coryelle Kramer. Mar 12, 2009
lampbane "And I looked, and behold a pale horse: and his name that sat on him was Death, and Hell followed with him." Nov 11, 2007
oroboros "Death is but a sleep and a forgetting..." (Wordsworth)
THOUGHT FOR THE DAY:
If large rats can be called squirrels,
and death can be called sleep,
then ANY thing is possible!
--Jan Cox Aug 19, 2007
abraxaszugzwang "There is no such thing as a natural death. Nothing that happens to Man is ever natural, since his presence calls the whole world into question. All men must die, but for every man his death is an accident. And even if he knows it and consents to it, an unjustifiable violation." - J.R.R. Tolkien Mar 13, 2007