death Meaning, Definition & Usage

  1. noun the event of dying or departure from life
    decease; expiry.
    • her death came as a terrible shock
    • upon your decease the capital will pass to your grandchildren
  2. noun the permanent end of all life functions in an organism or part of an organism
    • the animal died a painful death
  3. noun the absence of life or state of being dead
    • he seemed more content in death than he had ever been in life
  4. noun the time when something ends
    demise; dying.
    • it was the death of all his plans
    • a dying of old hopes
  5. noun the time at which life ends; continuing until dead
    last.
    • she stayed until his death
    • a struggle to the last
  6. noun the personification of death
    • Death walked the streets of the plague-bound city
  7. noun a final state
    end; destruction.
    • he came to a bad end
    • the so-called glorious experiment came to an inglorious end
  8. noun the act of killing
    • he had two deaths on his conscience

WordNet

Death noun
Etymology
OE. deth, dea, AS. deá; akin to OS. d, D. dood, G. tod, Icel. daui, Sw. & Dan. död, Goth. daupus; from a verb meaning to die. See Die, v. i., and cf. Dead.
Definitions
  1. The cessation of all vital phenomena without capability of resuscitation, either in animals or plants. ✍ Local death is going on at times and in all parts of the living body, in which individual cells and elements are being cast off and replaced by new; a process essential to life. General death is of two kinds; death of the body as a whole (somatic or systemic death), and death of the tissues. By the former is implied the absolute cessation of the functions of the brain, the circulatory and the respiratory organs; by the latter the entire disappearance of the vital actions of the ultimate structural constituents of the body. When death takes place, the body as a whole dies first, the death of the tissues sometimes not occurring until after a considerable interval. Huxley.
  2. Total privation or loss; extinction; cessation; as, the death of memory.
    The death of a language can not be exactly compared with the death of a plant. J. Peile.
  3. Manner of dying; act or state of passing from life.
    A death that I abhor. Shak.
    Let me die the death of the righteous. Num. xxiii. 10.
  4. Cause of loss of life.
    Swiftly flies the feathered death. Dryden.
    He caught his death the last county sessions. Addison.
  5. Personified: The destroyer of life, -- conventionally represented as a skeleton with a scythe.
    Death! great proprietor of all. Young.
    And I looked, and behold a pale horse; and his name that at on him was Death. Rev. vi. 8.
  6. Danger of death. "In deaths oft." 2 Cor. xi. 23.
  7. Murder; murderous character.
    Not to suffer a man of death to live. Bacon.
  8. (Theol.) Loss of spiritual life.
    To be m is death. Rom. viii. 6.
  9. Anything so dreadful as to be like death.
    It was death to them to think of entertaining such doctrines. Atterbury.
    And urged him, so that his soul was vexed unto death. Judg. xvi. 16.
    ✍ Death is much used adjectively and as the first part of a compound, meaning, in general, of or pertaining to death, causing or presaging death; as, deathbed or death bed; deathblow or death blow, etc. Syn. -- Death, Decrase, Departure, Release. Death applies to the termination of every form of existence, both animal and vegetable; the other words only to the human race. Decease is the term used in law for the removal of a human being out of life in the ordinary course of nature. Demise was formerly confined to decease of princes, but is now sometimes used of distinguished men in general; as, the demise of Mr. Pitt. Departure and release are peculiarly terms of Christian affection and hope. A violent death is not usually called a decease. Departure implies a friendly taking leave of life. Release implies a deliverance from a life of suffering or sorrow.

Webster 1913