afterworld

afterworlds (plural)
after-world (alternative)

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[…] your bookes shall be out worne in your age I warrant you. Onelie if some surviue by the mercy of a friends Library, the after-world shall rather pittie your lost time, then commende your diligence.

1596, John Harington, Ulysses upon Ajax, London: Thomas Gubbins:

[…] a person […] to whom, be who he may, I return my thanks in this public manner; hoping he will meet with a reward in some future day, or after world if he does not in this.

1773, James Swan, A Dissuasion to Great-Britain and the Colonies, from the Slave-Trade to Africa, Boston: J. Greenleaf, Revised and abridged edition, Preface, page viii-ix:

I’m finished now, but the last word on my life rests with you. If you turn out well, I can still claim some kind of success in the afterworld, if there is one.

1951, Herman Wouk, chapter 6, in The Caine Mutiny, Boston: Little, Brown, published 2013:

1995, Kai Hansen, "Afterlife", Gamma Ray, Land of the Free.
Do you believe in the afterworld / Or the afterlife?

A supposed world that is entered after death; the realm of the afterlife.


sleep with the fishes

en-verb

sleep with the fishes (third-person singular simple present sleeps with the fishes, present participle sleeping with the fishes, simple past and past participle slept with the fishes)

sleeps with the fishes (present singular third-person)
sleeping with the fishes (participle present)
slept with the fishes (participle past)
slept with the fishes (past)

The idea of sleeping with fishes first appears in Homer's Iliad (21), in which Achilles threatens (and kills) Lycaon (son of Priam), who will 'sleep with the fishes', in some translations. There was emphasis on the brutality of this method because it meant the body would remain forever unburied akin to an animal (fish). The earliest known exact phrase is from 1833, see the quotation below. The phrase was popularized in the motion picture The Godfather (1972). The 1969 book on which the movie was based includes a large, dead fish wrapped in a bulletproof vest being used to signify that a character is "sleeping on the bottom of the ocean", but not the phrase.

The porter […] opened his sack, and pitched the corpse into the river, and ran back to receive the rest of his pay “ It is done,” said he, laughing ; “ Your man sleeps with the fishes of the Tigris by this time […]”

1833 March, “The Three Humpbacks ; or, the Bridge of Bagdad”, in The Lady's Magazine and Museum, page 105:

(idiomatic) To be dead, with one's corpse disposed of in a body of water.

Joukowsky Institute for Archaeology and the Ancient World


pesticidal

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From pesticide + -al or pest + -i- + -cidal.

Of, pertaining to, or effective as a pesticide.


viricidal

en-adj

viricidal (comparative more viricidal, superlative most viricidal)

more viricidal (comparative)
most viricidal (superlative)

Of or pertaining to a viricide (killing of a husband)


feticide

en-noun

feticide (countable and uncountable, plural feticides)

feticides (plural)
fetucide (alternative)
foeticide (alternative)

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From fetus + -cide or fetus + -icide, from Middle French -cide, from Latin -cīda (“cutter, killer”) and its derivation -cīdium (“killing”), from -cīd (combining form of caedō (“cut, kill”)) + -a (“-er”, forming agent nouns).

Zimra, then, takes an unequivocal stance; favoring Rashi's view over that of Maimonides, he offers little comfort for the rodef approach, holding instead that feticide cannot be regarded as murder becaue the fetus is not a nefesh.

2002, Daniel Schiff, Abortion in Judaism, Cambridge University Press, →ISBN, page 68:

Notwithstanding the earnest opposition of writers and lecturers and preachers and legislators, the practice of feticide appears to be on the increase.

1878, H. Gibbons, "On Feticide" in Transactions of the Session of the Medical Society of the State of California vol. 8; J. Anthony & Co., Printers; page 209

(dysphemistic) The killing of a fetus or embryo; an induced abortion.


ultimate sacrifice

ultimate sacrifice (plural ultimate sacrifices)

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Near-synonym: martyrdom

However, the selfsame individual may be called to serve in armed services in times of war, and be asked to make the ultimate sacrifice by giving up his life

2000, Walter Prytulak, Paradise Regained: Prospects for a New Social Order in the Third Millennium:

The organizers sought to portray the bombers as "martyrs"—that is, as heroes prepared to make the ultimate sacrifice in defense of their people.

2002, Joe Stork, Erased in a Moment: Suicide Bombing Attacks Against Israeli Civilians, page 16:


mass murderer

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殺戮眾多的人 /杀戮众多的人

someone who commits a mass murder — see also serial killer


inheritance tax

inheritance tax (countable and uncountable, plural inheritance taxes)

A tax based on the value of the property of a deceased person, and charged on the beneficiaries of the estate.


psychomancy

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Divination involving communication with spirits; necromancy.


algicide

algicide (countable and uncountable, plural algicides)

algicides (plural)
algaecide (alternative)
algæcide (alternative)

I add algicide to my aquarium to eliminate the green scum of algae that forms on the glass.

A substance that kills, or inhibits the growth of, algae.


algaecide

algaecide (countable and uncountable, plural algaecides)

This can happen for a few reasons, such as adding too much floc or adding too much algaecide prior to floccing.

2023, Kristine Blanchard, Pool Care For Dummies (page 291)


defunction

defunction (countable and uncountable, plural defunctions)

/dəˈfʌŋkʃən/

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Until four hundred one-and-twenty years / After defunction of King Pharamond […]

1599 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Life of Henry the Fift”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act I, scene ii]:


die back

en-verb

die back (third-person singular simple present dies back, present participle dying back, simple past and past participle died back)

dies back (present singular third-person)
dying back (participle present)
died back (participle past)
died back (past)

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The same walls, when the Virginia creeper dies back in winter, show a date-mark of 1490.

1980, AA Book of British Villages, Drive Publications Ltd, page 240:

The changing weather pattern, and in particular warmer winters, has also affected the inspection of earthworks. Lineside vegetation is not dying back as previously and has to be cleared before any inspections can take place.

2023 May 3, 'Industry Insider', “Funds for railway's upkeep”, in RAIL, number 982, page 84:

(botany, of a plant) To wither, particularly during the winter.


memento mori

en-noun

memento mori (plural memento mori or memento moris or mementos mori or mementoes mori)

memento mori (plural)
memento moris (plural)
mementos mori (plural)
mementoes mori (plural)

From Latin mementō morī (literally “be mindful of dying”).

bor

No, Ile be ſworne: I make as good vſe of it, as many a man doth of a Deaths-Head, or a Memento Mori.

c. 1597 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The First Part of Henry the Fourth, […]”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act III, scene iii], page 64:

A great man must keep his heir at his feast like a living memento mori. If he holds very much by life, the presence of the other must be a constant sting and warning. “Make ready to go,” says the successor to your honour; “I am waiting: and I could hold it as well as you.”

1848 November – 1850 December, William Makepeace Thackeray, chapter 62, in The History of Pendennis. […], volume (please specify |volume=I or II), London: Bradbury and Evans, […], published 1849–1850, →OCLC:

I have often heard you express your dislike of any impertinent memento moris—you have even thought it irreligious, and unthankful for present good; and tending to chill the life-blood, the little that is left in the old, and to throw a wet blanket over the cheerfulness of the young, out of which cheerfulness elastic manhood is to spring, and to take upon itself to do the manly responsible duties of life vigorously. I repeat that you have always maintained, that to thrust a memento mori in every man’s face, or to carve it upon his walking-stick, is irreligious, because it is essential unthankfulness.

1854 October, “Civilisation.—The Census.”, in Blackwood’s Edinburgh Magazine, volume LXXVI, number CCCCLXVIII, Edinburgh, London: William Blackwood & Sons, […], page 447, column 2:

On All Saints’ day, Toussaint, the festival of the dead, the fête des morts, the whole town, and especially the cemetery of Rheims, was a scene of lively, and I may say cheerful, excitement. Along the street leading to the latter were arranged on both sides stalls and tables, gayly festooned with crowns, crosses, and memento moris, and attended by female hucksters.

1867, Robert Tomes, “A Cheerful Resort—Cemetery at Rheims—Death and Champagne—[…]”, in The Champagne Country, New YorK, N.Y.: […] [Melancthon M.] Hurd and [Henry Oscar] Houghton, […], pages 193–194:

Here Rudolf tried to insulate himself from the world in a huge accumulation of curiosities and works of art, by all accounts just such a hodge-podge as that of effigies of giants, portraits of horned dwarfs, chastity belts, and mementoes mori in coral as one may see today in the rooms of the Hapsburg Schloss Ambras outside Innsbruck.

1962, Brian Knox, “Prague: Castle and City”, in Bohemia and Moravia: An Architectural Companion, London: Faber and Faber Limited […], page 27:

Three days after her proclamation Victoria drove down to Windsor. She had already given an audience to the Earl Marshal and Garter King at Arms about her uncle’s funeral. It remained to visit the Castle, where his remains lay in state, and give her condolences to the Queen Dowager. / Despite her morbid interest in mementoes mori she did not enjoy this visit. The royal standard hung limply at half mast.

1971, Tyler Whittle, chapter 4, in The Young Victoria, London: Pan Books Ltd, published 1973, →ISBN, page 192:

The series of moments [which] the clock records is not only a succession of “nows” but a memento mori diminishing the number of seconds that remain before death.

1993, Richard Klein, “Introduction”, in Cigarettes are sublime, Paperback edition, Durham: Duke University Press, published 1995, →ISBN, →OCLC, page 8:

At least it’s given me a chance to study the hospital’s collection of discreet mementoes mori. It’s not just the leaflets from the local council posted around the place telling you, so tastefully, how to register a death, or the instructions on how to get hold of an emergency priest or a rabbi when the moment comes. It’s everywhere.

1998, John Diamond, C: Because Cowards Get Cancer Too…, London: Vermilion, Ebury Press, published 1999, →ISBN, page 29:

And there were even stranger sides to this kind of behaviour: when his mother died, Bruckner commissioned a photograph of her on her death bed and kept it in his teaching room. He had no image of his mother when she was alive, just this grotesque-seeming token of her death staring out at him as an unsettling memento mori.

2014 April 1, Tom Service, “Sex, death and dissonance: the strange, obsessive world of Anton Bruckner”, in The Guardian:

As a student of the fossil record, I can assure you that it’s not often that creatures are transformed, in flagrante delicto, into memento mori.

2018, Tim Flannery, Europe: A Natural History, page 65:

Bright enamel is a feature of posies around the late sixteenth to mid-seventeenth century, with darker enamels continuing into the eighteenth century on memento moris like this example.

2021, Jo Ahmet, 50 Finds From Kent: Objects from the Portable Antiquities Scheme, Amberley Publishing, →ISBN:

An emblematic object or personal ornament, such as a skull, used as a reminder of one's mortality.

lembre-se de que é mortal, lembre-se da morte


deathful

en-adj

deathful (comparative more deathful, superlative most deathful)

more deathful (comparative)
most deathful (superlative)

LL-Q1860 (eng)-Flame, not lame-deathful.wav

From Middle English dethful, equivalent to death + -ful.

Five hapless swains with soft allusive smiles / The harlot meshes in her deathful toils […].

1789, Erasmus Darwin, The Loves of the Plants, J. Johnson, page 111:

Involving the danger of death; fatal, deadly.

Resembling or pertaining to death; deathly.


rainbow bridge

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Two of my three dogs have crossed the rainbow bridge.

I'm so sorry your little Typo is gone. Surely she knew how much she was loved and she will wait for you at the Rainbow Bridge.

2005 September 23, jacquie, kylie & gilbert, “Typo (0/1)”, in alt.pets.ferrets (Usenet):

On social media, users share their emotions, positive and negative, when, for example, cats celebrate their birthdays or adoptaversaries, or when cats are ill or ‘have crossed the rainbow bridge’.

2023, Edith Podhovnik, “Cats and Their Digital Spaces”, in “The Cativerse”, in Purrieties of Language: How We Talk about Cats Online, Cambridge, Cambridgeshire: Cambridge University Press, →ISBN, page 11:

(euphemistic) A metaphorical bridge crossed at death, usually in reference to pets.


biocide

en-noun

biocide (countable and uncountable, plural biocides)

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[T]here is the inability of the Christian world to respond in any effective way to the destruction of the planet. […] There is this terrible lack of concern for biocide or geocide. We have no moral principles to deal with them. […] Somehow, when I was quite young, I saw the beginning of biocide and geocide.

1991, Thomas Berry; Thomas Clarke; Stephen Dunn and Anne Lonergan, editors, Befriending the Earth: A Theology of Reconciliation between Humans and the Earth, Mystic, Conn.: Twenty-Third Publications, ISBN 978-0-89622-471-1; quoted in Cristina Vanin, “Attaining Harmony with the Earth”, in John C. Haughey, editor, In Search of the Whole: Twelve Essays on Faith and Academic Life, Washington, D.C.: Georgetown University Press, 2011, ISBN 978-1-58901-781-8, page 184

Any action or substance that can destroy living organisms.

biocida

any substance that can destroy living organisms


Erebus

From Latin Erebus. Doublet of rajas.
[Alt: Mount Erebus]

Nay, were he Deul, as he is no man,
Yet in reuenge of faire Zenocrate,
UUhome he detayneth in deſpight of vs,
This arme ſhould ſend him downe to Erebus,
To ſhroud his ſhame in darkneſſe of the night.

c. 1587–1588, [Christopher Marlowe], Tamburlaine the Great. […] The First Part […], 2nd edition, part 1, London: […] [R. Robinson for] Richard Iones, […], published 1592, →OCLC; reprinted as Tamburlaine the Great (A Scolar Press Facsimile), Menston, Yorkshire, London: Scolar Press, 1973, →ISBN, Act IIII, scene i:

(Greek mythology) The dark and gloomy cavern between the earth and Hades; the underworld.


arboricide

arboricide (countable and uncountable, plural arboricides)

arboricides (plural)
arborcide (alternative)

President Hayes spoke of the gigantic trees which he had seen in California, one of which was so large that he and seven other persons rode into the hollow of its trunk. He had heard of the crime of arboricide, and agreed with Mr. Muzzey that it deserves punishment.

1882, “Meeting for Discussion. Ornamental Arboriculture.”, in Transactions of the Massachusetts Horticultural Society, for the Year 1882, part I, Boston, Mass.: […] the Society, page 16:

Irresolutely she threaded her way among the motley crowd on the hot, unshaded platform of the station, pausing, because it seemed to bar her way, before the section of Pueblo’s king of cottonwoods, which advertising ingenuity has erected there,—fit monument, Donald had once said, for a city’s crime of arboricide.

1890 June, Mary E. Stickney, “Circumstantial Evidence. A Novel.”, in Lippincott’s Monthly Magazine, Philadelphia, Pa.: J. B. Lippincott Company, chapter VI, page 798:

The salaried tree killer for the state of Nebraska has been at work about the Soldiers’ Home at Milford. He is guilty of arboricide in the first degree.

Under cover of the night they pulled up the saplings, tore down the branches, and maimed the trunks, and often in the morning the dismayed laird saw that in the darkness the labours and pride of years had been ruthlessly ruined. […] The barons of regality might issue their threats, the statutes of the State might renew and increase their penalties; but this crime of arboricide was distressingly frequent, to the discouragement of “improvers.”

1899, Henry Grey Graham, “The Land and the People, 1700-1750”, in The Social Life of Scotland in the Eighteenth Century, volume I, London: Adam and Charles Black, page 199:

When his [Winston Churchill’s] wife [Clementine] had chopped down a favorite elm tree at Chartwell, Churchill said to her, “Clemmie, you are guilty of arboricide!”

1994, James C. Humes, The Wit & Wisdom of Winston Churchill: A Treasury of More than 1,000 Quotations and Anecdotes, HarperPerennial, published 1995, →ISBN, page 140:

As the leaves begin to fall from the tree, they accuse the man of being anti-arboreal and an enemy of nature, a claim that he adamantly denies. More arguing ensues and in his characteristically brilliant manner, James Coyle forces the conversation to the point where the man has been accused, tried, and found guilty of arboricide.

2008, Kenny G, “May We Graft Chicken Wings to Your Head In The Interest of Aviation?: The insane (but hilarious) minds of Coyle & Sharpe”, in Dave the Spazz [pseudonym; Dave Abramson], editor, The Best of LCD: The Art and Writing of WFMU, Princeton Architectural Press, →ISBN, page 90:

The design of the house had been adapted to the surrounding trees, “wound and looped between these irreplaceable treasures,” [Elizabeth] Bisland wrote in an article about Applegarth, “pushing out a porch here, or a window there . . . and stepping up and down to rooms of different levels as the grade of the land required, so that roots need not be cut nor branches lopped”; they had not wanted to commit, as she put it, “the too common crime of arboricide.”

2013, Matthew Goodman, Eighty Days: Nellie Bly and Elizabeth Bisland’s History-Making Race Around the World, New York, N.Y.: Ballantine Books Trade Paperbacks, published 2014, →ISBN, page 357:


deathy

en-adj

deathy (comparative more deathy, superlative most deathy)

more deathy (comparative)
most deathy (superlative)

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1829, Robert Southey, A Tale of Paraguay, Canto IV, XXXVIII, The Poetical Works of Robert Southey, page 569,
The sunny hue that tinged her cheek was gone, / A deathy paleness settled in its stead;

The deathy stillness of a town, and the barred windows, and shut shops, and empty streets, and great long lines of big brick buildins,^([sic]) look melancholy.

1836, Thomas Chandler Haliburton, The Clockmaker: Or, The Sayings and Doings of Samuel Slick of Slickville, First Series, published 1840, page 83:

I heard a lady near whom I happened to sit one evening in a river-steamer describe it to a companion, when its swampy flats came into sight, as "a deathy place." The phrase was picturesque, effective and very appropriate. It did look a deathy place; but it had the advantages — to me supreme — of being very cheap, and of having easy access to the river, and therefore to town.

1869 February, Justin McCarthy, “My Enemy's Daughter”, in Mary Elizabeth Braddon, editor, Belgravia, volume 7, page 186:


biocidal

biocidal (comparative more biocidal, superlative most biocidal)

more biocidal (comparative)
most biocidal (superlative)

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Able to kill living organisms, especially microorganisms


ovicide

Any substance designed to kill eggs, especially the eggs of insects.


vermicide

Any substance used to kill worms, especially parasitic intestinal worms


zoocide

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Much later, however, during the Permian period, there was a second act of zoocide, one which is less known and less popular among filmmakers ...

When the bounty system alone failed to kill all the wolves, the federal government underwrote a kind of zoocide using bounties, trapping, hunting, ...

2013, Kelsi Nagy, Phillip David Johnson II, Trash Animals: How We Live with Nature’s Filthy, Feral, Invasive, and Unwanted Species, U of Minnesota Press, →ISBN:

Our proposal is that we speak of zoocide in cases where animals are systematically put to death in large numbers. Zoocide cannot be placed on the same level ...

2016, Matthieu Ricard, A Plea for the Animals: The Moral, Philosophical, and Evolutionary Imperative to Treat All Beings with Compassion, Shambhala Publications, →ISBN, page 147:

The systematic or targeted killing of animals.


offer one's condolences

en-verb

offer one's condolences (third-person singular simple present offers one's condolences, present participle offering one's condolences, simple past and past participle offered one's condolences)

offers one's condolences (present singular third-person)
offering one's condolences (participle present)
offered one's condolences (participle past)
offered one's condolences (past)

The president offered his condolences to the mother of the dead soldier.

(idiomatic) To offer sympathy to someone who has recently experienced the loss of a loved one.


cark it

cark it (third-person singular simple present carks it, present participle carking it, simple past and past participle carked it)

carks it (present singular third-person)
carking it (participle present)
carked it (participle past)
carked it (past)
kark it (alternative)

A slang shortening of carcass + it. Not related to cark (“to worry”). Used frequently in Australia.

The guy was running, then he had a heart attack and carked it.

He′d always bragged about carking it before he hit twenty. When he turned twenty, he escalated the date of his demise to twenty-five.

1989, Kathy Lette, Girl′s Night Out, →ISBN, page 86:

If I hit the little shit too hard his parents could even sue me. There′s a fine line between self-defence and pure and simple mayhem. The little bastard might even cark it.

1998, Barry Westburg, Glenda & Me & Meathead Go For Broke: Rage of Angels: Expatriate Tales, page 74:

“Hi Bill. Zorah told you about Kate?”
“That she carked it? Yeh.” Translation: That she died. Yeah.
He flapped his hand in a go-away gesture and started toward the koalas, but not before I saw a haunted look in his eyes. Did he still care for Kate?

2010, Betty Webb, The Koala of Death, page 10:

(UK, Ireland, Australia, New Zealand, slang) To die.


Ashvamedha

Borrowed from Sanskrit अश्वमेध (áśva-medhá, “horse-sacrifice”), an oxytonic tatpuruṣa compound of अश्व (áśva, “horse”) and मेध (médha, “animal sacrifice”).

bor

A peculiar verse in the Yajurvedic Ashvamedha tells us that in the sacrifices that were performed by the devas, Agni was the horse, and he conquered the earth (23/17). The idea of using the Ashvamedha horse for extending the rule to the neighbouring territories arose from this.

1996, Jayant Gadkari, Society and Religion: From Rugveda to Puranas, page 32:

(Hinduism) One of the most important Vedic sacrificial rituals related to kings, and name of the Rigvedic hymns 1.162-163 which deal with horse sacrifice.


go the way of all flesh

en-verb

go<goes,,went,gone> the way of all flesh

go the way of all flesh (third-person singular simple present goes the way of all flesh, present participle going the way of all flesh, simple past went the way of all flesh, past participle gone the way of all flesh)

goes the way of all flesh (present singular third-person)
going the way of all flesh (participle present)
went the way of all flesh (past)
gone the way of all flesh (participle past)

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Equivalent to Danish gå al kødets gang, German den Weg allen Fleisches gehen.

[T]hough the body be going the vvay of all fleſh, yet that ſoule is going the vvay of all Saints.

1624, John Donne, chapter XVII, in Deuotions upon Emergent Occasions, and Seuerall Steps in My Sicknes: […], London: […] A[ugustine] M[atthews] for Thomas Iones, →OCLC, page 434:

The first stranger handed his neighbor the family mug—a huge vessel of brown ware, having its upper edge worn away like a threshold by the rub of whole generations of thirsty lips that had gone the way of all flesh.

1879–1888, Thomas Hardy, “(please specify the page)”, in Wessex Tales: Strange, Lively, and Commonplace […], volume (please specify |volume=I or II), London; New York, N.Y.: Macmillan and Co., published 1888, →OCLC:

What could one do? Buy them and stick them in a lumber-room? No; they had to go the way of all flesh and furniture, and be worn out.

1921 September, John Galsworthy, chapter 11, in To Let, 1st American edition, New York, N.Y.: Charles Scribner’s Sons, →OCLC, part III, page 310:

On the U.S. West Coast, the clubs and restaurants that feature topless female entertainers and waitresses also seemed to be going the way of all flesh. In Los Angeles, 20% of the joints have closed.

1967 August 18, “Tops & Bottoms”, in Time, New York, N.Y.: Time Inc., →ISSN, →OCLC, archived from the original on 2008-12-15:

Laurence of Oxford went the way of all flesh on the gallows.

2006, Laura Wertheimer, “Clerical Dissent, Popular Piety, and Sanctity in 14th-Century Peterborough”, in Journal of British Studies, volume 45, number 1, page 3:

(euphemistic) To die; to follow a course leading to death or extinction.


Izanami

Borrowed from Japanese 伊邪那美 (いざなみ, Izanami).

(Japanese mythology, Shinto) A Japanese creator goddess who is also (along with the Shinigami and Enma) a goddess of death and the underworld; she is Izanagi's younger sister and spouse, and the mother of Amaterasu, Tsukuyomi, Susanoo and Kagutsuchi.


POD

en-noun

POD (countable and uncountable, plural PODs)

Vickers et al. found that at entry to the study, that is, when it was thought that cure was no longer possible, 98 (68%) of 164 families recorded a preference for home as POD.

2013, Myra Bluebond-Langner, Emma Beecham, Bridget Candy, Richard Langner, Louise Jones, “Preferred place of death for children and young people with life-limiting and life-threatening conditions […] ”, in Palliative Medicine, volume 27, number 8, SAGE Publications, →DOI, page 708:


sororicidal

Of or pertaining to sororicide, the killing of one's sister.


death grip

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The masturbation sense was coined by American sex advice columnist and gay rights campaigner Dan Savage in 2003.

coin

The armies came together in a death grip at the bottom of the valley.

[O]ne Confederate in the death grip had seized the sharp edge of a huge rock, and with feet held fast in a cleft of the rock above, hung head downwards between the two.

1888, John L. Smith, History of the Corn Exchange Regiment, Philadelphia, Pa., page 257:

They act as skirmishers before the actual battle: and while the hoplites are in the real death-grip they harass the foe as they can, and guard the camp.

1914, William Stearns Davis, A Day in Old Athens: A Picture of Athenian Life:

A perilous situation or stalemate where failure or death is imminent.


last words

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The alleged last words would have been "More beating" had one of the assailants failed to notice the victim's true intent.

(often sarcastic) The final remarks uttered by a person before death.


Ankou

Borrowed from French Ankou, from Breton Ankoù.

In the blackness of the night the muttering or yelling figures moved about like some spectral creatures from hellish regions—the Ankous of Brittany who call to those about to die[.]

1906, Baroness Orczy, chapter 27, in I Will Repay, London:

(Celtic mythology) The personification of death in Celtic mythology.


Ah Puch

(Maya mythology) The personification of death in Maya mythology.


burning-ghat

Now, whether I have done thee a wrong in keeping thee from the burning-ghât, do thou and the crows settle together.

1888, Rudyard Kipling, ‘In Flood Time’, In Black and White, Folio Society, published 2005, page 415:

(India) A flat area near the top of a river ghat where Hindus burn their dead; a funeral pyre.


take to the grave

en-verb

take to the grave (third-person singular simple present takes to the grave, present participle taking to the grave, simple past took to the grave, past participle taken to the grave)

takes to the grave (present singular third-person)
taking to the grave (participle present)
took to the grave (past)
taken to the grave (participle past)

Houdini took his secrets to the grave, as he died shortly after performing one of his most famous escapes.

Omigosh, you CAN'T tell her I said that! I'm so serious! Take it to the grave.

2004, Intelligent Systems, translated by Nintendo of America, Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door, Nintendo, GameCube, level/area: Twilight Town:

(idiomatic, transitive) To never reveal (a secret).


valkyrie

valkyries (plural)
Valkyria (alternative)
Valkyrie (alternative)
Walkyrie (alternative)

Borrowed from Old Norse valkyrja sg (“chooser of the slain”), plural valkyrjur pl, from Proto-Germanic *walakuzjǭ. Cognate to Old English wælcyrġe. First attested in English as a proper noun (Valkyries) in the 1770s; attested as a common noun (valkyries) since the 1880s.

bor

Wagner's “Der Ring des Nibelungen” (1853) famously features valkyries.

(Norse mythology) Any of the female attendants of Odin, figures said to guide fallen warriors from the battlefield to Valhalla.

walkure

any of the female attendants, or handmaidens of Odin


doomsday event

A mysterious occurrence late in the story is the historically factual Tunguska Event, a massive Siberian explosion, probably by an asteroid, in the summer of 1908: a doomsday event caused by an arrival from another realm.

2006, Greg Hollingshead, "Let Pynchon be Pynchon" (review of Against the Day by Thomas_Pynchon), Globe and Mail (Toronto), 2 Dec., p. D6

An earthquake of as much as 7.3 magnitude . . . is the maximum predicted earthquake in Utah, said Johnson. "We could call that a doomsday event."

2007 May 8, Glen Warchol, “Earthquake-proof: Capitol is ready for a rumble”, in The Salt Lake Tribune:

A localized event causing widespread death or destruction within a specific geographical area.


supreme sacrifice

en-noun

supreme sacrifice (plural supreme sacrifices)

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We will face the problems of peace with the same courage that we have faced and mastered the problems of war. In the memory of those that have made the supreme sacrifice, in the memory of our fallen president, we shall not fail.

1945 April 16, Harry S. Truman, 10:41 from the start, in MP72-20 President Roosevelt’s Funeral and Procession; Truman – New President of U.S., Harry S. Truman Presidential Library and Museum, National Archives Identifier: 595162:

ultimate sacrifice
ultimate sacrifice#English


giganticide

giganticide (countable and uncountable, plural giganticides)

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As they scarce make a capital crime of infanticide, / There can't be any harm in a little giganticide.

1864, William Evans Burton, The Cyclopædia of Wit and Humor:


aphidicide

aphidicides (plural)
aphicide (alternative)

Lacewings, the beautiful, iridescent "nerve-winged" insects of the order Neuroptera, produce larvae that specialize in aphidicide, though they won't pass up ...

1990, Allen Lacy, The American Gardener:


tower of silence

tower of silence (plural towers of silence)

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Calque of French tour du silence, from the fact that human voices are generally not heard at such places.

(Zoroastrianism) A low, cylindrical, open-topped tower where Zoroastrians place the bodies of deceased people to disintegrate from exposure and consumption by carrion birds such as vultures, the remaining bones being kept in an ossuary.

بُرْج الصَّمْت

low, cylindrical open-topped tower where Zoroastrians place the bodies of deceased people to disintegrate


felicide

felicide (countable and uncountable, plural felicides)


perimortem

Certainly, most fresh bone fractures with no healing occur perimortem; […]

2012, Nicholas V. Passalacqua, Todd W. Fenton, “Developments in Skeletal Trauma: Blunt-Force Trauma”, in Dennis C. Dirkmaat, editor, A Companion to Forensic Anthropology, Wiley Blackwell, published 2015, →ISBN, part IV (Developments in Human Skeletal Trauma Analysis), page 402:

The relevant type of infarct for correlation to cognitive function is chronic (months to years old) and not the acute or subacute infarcts that occur perimortem.

2019, Thor D. Stein, Victor E. Alvarez, Bertrand R. Huber, “Applications of Neuropathological Examination”, in Michael L. Alosco, Robert A. Stern, editors, The Oxford Handbook of Adult Cognitive Disorders (Oxford Library of Psychology), Oxford University Press, →ISBN, page 818:

“Their hyoid bones are broken just like with the more recent victims. That would certainly cause death. But without skin and blood, we can’t tell for certain if it happened perimortem or postmortem.” He sighed. “My guess would be perimortem.[…]”

2020, Nancy Mehl, Dead End (Kaely Quinn Profiler; book three), Bethany House, →ISBN:


lingchi

ling chi (alternative)
leng t'che (alternative)

The face of the dying man in the lingchi video monotonously evokes Maria Falconetti in Carl Theodor Dreyer ’s 1928 “Passion of Joan of Arc.”

2007 July 25, Roberta Smith, “Figures Moving as if in a Trance Across an Isolated, Lawless Island”, in The New York Times:

death by a thousand cuts
death by a thousand cuts

A form of execution used in China from roughly 900 to 1905 C.E., the "death by a thousand cuts", in which the condemned was killed by methodical removal of body parts with a knife.


bonehouse

From Old English bānhūs (“the body, the chest, breast”, literally “the bone-house”), equivalent to bone + house.

inh

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[…] but the poet, having moved through a landscape that is defined by images of barrenness and desolation — trees "lorn of all delicious apple," an empty house given over to "dust that filmed the deadened air," "the bonehouse of a rabbit," […]

1990, Peter Stitt, Frank Graziano, James Wright: The Heart of the Light:


licecide

(rare) A lousicide: a substance that kills lice.


shaheed

shaheeds (plural)
shahed (alternative)
shahid (alternative)

LL-Q1860 (eng)-Naomi Persephone Amethyst (NaomiAmethyst)-shaheed.wav

From Arabic شَهِيد (šahīd, “martyr, witness”).

bor

She has told the child that her father was a shaheed, a martyr, concealing the real story of her brutal conception.

2007 January 16, Joan Dupont, “For a Director on the Rise, Sarajevo’s War Years Linger”, in New York Times:

An Islamic or Sikh martyr, one who has died fulfilling a religious commandment and is thus promised a place in Paradise.


dominicide

en-noun

dominicide (countable and uncountable, plural dominicides)


vermicidal

en-adj

vermicidal (comparative more vermicidal, superlative most vermicidal)

more vermicidal (comparative)
most vermicidal (superlative)


arborcide

It turned out that a neighbor's ailanthus tree was blocking her view. Ms. Powis's answer was meant to discourage both trespassing and arborcide.

2007 January 16, Anthony Ramirez, “Where There's a Plant, She's Got an Answer”, in New York Times:


mildewcide

en-noun

mildewcide (countable and uncountable, plural mildewcides)

Any agent or preparation that kills mildew.


human sacrifice

human sacrifice (countable and uncountable, plural human sacrifices)

The killing of one or more human beings as part of a religious ritual.


rodenticidal

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Serving to kill rodents, as a rodenticide.


hospiticide

hospiticide (countable and uncountable, plural hospiticides)

From Latin hospiticīda or *hospiticīdium, from hospes (“host, guest”) + -cīda (“killer”); equivalent to + -cide.

Anniversary of the Massacre of the Prado — the Defeat of Quesada — Murderous Reprisals — Hospiticides.

1837, Edward Smallwood, Manuella, the Executioner’s Daughter ; A Story of Madrid, volume II, page 261:

(rare) The act of a guest killing his host or vice versa, or an instance thereof.


feet first

(of the movement or transportation of a person or animal) With the feet preceding the rest of the body.

mit den Füßen voran

with the feet preceding the rest of the body


jellyfish baby

jellyfish baby (plural jellyfish babies)

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A stillborn infant with transparent skin and without bones, resulting from radiation poisoning.


draw one's last breath

en-verb

draw one's last breath (third-person singular simple present draws one's last breath, present participle drawing one's last breath, simple past drew one's last breath, past participle drawn one's last breath)

draws one's last breath (present singular third-person)
drawing one's last breath (participle present)
drew one's last breath (past)
drawn one's last breath (participle past)


mosquitocide

en-noun

mosquitocide (countable and uncountable, plural mosquitocides)

mosquitocides (plural)
mosquiticide (alternative)

Six types of sprayers were tried. […] Mixed catches of mosquitoes were used, the majority being Armigeres obturans, a hardy culecine^([sic]) mosquito. Measured quantities of mosquitocide of known potency were blown off from the various sprayers and the room kept closed for half an hour.

1939, Report of the Haffkine Institute, Bombay: Haffkine Institute, pages 54–55:

In order to reduce the mosquito population in the summer of 1949, a portion of this area which showed infestation with larvae was sprayed by airplane within the last 30 days. If further tests show the necessity for more extensive air spraying with mosquitocide, additional treatment will be applied.

1949 June 13, Reports of Proceedings of the City Council of Boston […], Boston, Mass.: Printing Department, published 1950, page 187, column 2:

The broad field of action of aqueous suspensions is indicated by the fact that 12,500 of the liters of mosquitocide with DDT as a base used in Venezuela in 1951 to spray 500,000 houses in the malarial area, 84% were in aqueous suspensions and only 16% in solutions and emulsions.

1952, Documents: CIH/O-CIH/62, 3 July-4 Oct. 1952:

The following are some examples of the benefits obtained from mangroves. They are a source of wood products – timber, poles and posts, firewood, charcoal; non-wood products such as fodder, honey, wax, tannin, dye and materials for thatching; traditional tea prepared from mangrove leaves serve^([sic]) as a cholesterol feed for prawn, as potential sources of mosquitocide and as a source of anti-viral drug formulation.

2004, National Workshop on Conservation, Restoration and Sustainable Management of Mangrove Forests in India: 18th-22nd February, 2004, Visakhapatnam, Bangalore, Karnataka: Institute of Wood Science and Technology, →ISBN, page 168, column 1:


mosquitocidal

en-adj

mosquitocidal (comparative more mosquitocidal, superlative most mosquitocidal)

more mosquitocidal (comparative)
most mosquitocidal (superlative)

Acting as a mosquitocide; fatal to mosquitos.


larvacidal

larvacidal (comparative more larvacidal, superlative most larvacidal)

more larvacidal (comparative)
most larvacidal (superlative)


lampricide

Any pesticide applied to kill lampreys; commonly affecting their larvae in particular.


lampricidal

lampricidal (comparative more lampricidal, superlative most lampricidal)

more lampricidal (comparative)
most lampricidal (superlative)


deicidal

deicidal (comparative more deicidal, superlative most deicidal)

more deicidal (comparative)
most deicidal (superlative)

Early Christian doctrine professed that the Jews were a deicidal people, condemned by God to dispersion and suffering.

2000, Malka Hillel Shulewitz, The forgotten millions: the modern Jewish exodus from Arab lands, page 47:

"How do you like that, you deicidal maniac? Huh? HUH? Now who's so big and tough?" "Dude, don't taunt the god-killing abomination."

2006, Rich Burlew, The Order of the Stick: No Cure for the Paladin Blues, page 275:

'Jerusalem overawes me' declared François-René, Vicomte de Chateaubriand, even though this 'deicidal city' was 'a heap of rubbish' with the 'confused monuments of a cemetery in the middle of a desert'.

2011, Simon Sebag Montefiore, Jerusalem: The Biography – A History of the Middle East, page 382:


multicide

The killing of multiple people; mass murder or serial killing.


yield the ghost

en-verb

yield the ghost (third-person singular simple present yields the ghost, present participle yielding the ghost, simple past and past participle yielded the ghost)

yields the ghost (present singular third-person)
yielding the ghost (participle present)
yielded the ghost (participle past)
yielded the ghost (past)
yield up the ghost (alternative)

and often did I strive / To yield the ghost: but still the envious flood / Stopped in my soul, and would not let it forth

c. 1593 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Tragedy of Richard the Third: […]”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act I, scene iv], pages line36-38:


avunculicide

en-noun

avunculicide (countable and uncountable, plural avunculicides)

From Latin avunculus (“maternal uncle”) + -icide.


a short drop and a sudden stop

[ə ˌʃɔɹʔ ˈdɹɒp ən ə ˌsʌdn̩ ˈstɒp]

en-au-a short drop and a sudden stop.ogg

Popular due to the internal rhyme of drop with stop.

a quick drop and a sudden stop (alternative)

I see, in other words, a short drop and then a sudden stop?

1923, Austin B Griffin, Reports of Cases Heard and Determined in the Appellate Division of the Supreme Court of the State of New York, volume 203, page 885:

I intend to see to it that any man who sails under a pirate flag or wears a pirate brand gets what he deserves: A short drop and a sudden stop.

2003, Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl:

> But, yeah, the death penalty is a little stiff just for pretentious writing.
> Punning now… it’d be a capital idea, there.
Let’s not start _that_ row. Give it a quick drop and a sudden stop, rather than letting them hang…

2005 January 8, “Bookman”, alt.fan.heinlein (Google group): Clarke Survives Tsunamis

If you were lucky enough to survive all this lunacy, you always risked capture. There your story would end with a quick drop and a sudden stop, for piracy was punishable by hanging.

2006 Hirchak, John Hirchak. Ghosts of Old Wilmington, page 27 (The History Press; →ISBN)

(idiomatic) A fall to one's death by hanging.


encoffinment

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The encoffinment takes place on the third day after death, in the presence of the assembled family.

1882, Robert K. Douglas, China, with Map, Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge, page 294:

In rites of encoffinment, burial and commemoration, all human beings are treated as ghosts.

2002, Linda Woodhead et al., Religions in the Modern World: Traditions and Transformations, →ISBN, page 109:

The preparation of the body of a deceased person and placement of it in a coffin, especially in a ceremonial or ritualistic manner.


resomation

resomation (countable and uncountable, plural resomations)

[…] bodies were dissolved by resomation and the fluid evaporated to a powder that was ceremoniously scattered around the roots of newly planted trees.

2008, Paul J. McAuley, The Quiet War, page 186:

Many consumers opt for cremation for environmental reasons, though it too carries the risk for air pollution. Some in the industry are looking to alternatives of body disposal such as freeze-drying (promession) and dissolving (resomation).

2009, Clifton D. Bryant with Dennis L. Peck, Encyclopedia of Death and the Human Experience, Sage Publications, →ISBN:

Enter resomation, an alternative to cremation for the eco-conscious cadaver. Resomation is a process that liquefies rather than burns body tissues.

2009, Ruth Davis Konigsberg, “The 9th annual year in ideas”, in The New York Times Magazine:

A process for the disposal of a corpse by submerging it in a strong base compound at a high pressure and temperature until it dissolves.


bite the big one

en-verb

bite the big one (third-person singular simple present bites the big one, present participle biting the big one, simple past bit the big one, past participle bitten the big one)

bites the big one (present singular third-person)
biting the big one (participle present)
bit the big one (past)
bitten the big one (participle past)

Whatever air-conditioning system the car had once possessed had bitten the big one years ago; ...

1988, Barbara Hambly, The silicon mage, page 5:

(slang) To break down; to be impossible to repair or not worth repairing.


Colombian necktie

en-noun

Colombian necktie (plural Colombian neckties)

Colombian neckties (plural)
Colombian necklace (alternative)

First attested in 1981: Colombian, from its frequent use as a method of intimidation during La Violencia (circa 1948–1958) + necktie, from the resulting macabre resemblance of the victim's tongue to that of a necktie as it dangles over the chest.

Guillermo’s long body was sprawled across the double bed. It took him a minute to realize what had been done. He had read reports of the “Colombian necktie” but had never expected to see one, […]

1981, David Thoreau, The Santanic Condition: A Novel, Arbor House, →ISBN, page 132, →ISBN:

In Jackson Heights, according to New York Newsday, the favored method of execution is now the “Colombian necktie”: The throat is cut and the tongue pulled through the slit to hang down upon the chest. The drug gangs are not misunderstood little boys.

1988 August 15, New York Magazine, volume 21, № 32, page 22:

His body had been found two weeks earlier by the DEA on the MacArthur Causeway leading over to the Beach, the concrete beneath his crumpled body soaking up blood, his tongue hanging out in a Colombian necktie.

1990, Douglas Terman, Enemy Territory, Bantam Books, →ISBN, page 331, →ISBN:

If you betray them, they kill your family and give you a “Colombian necktie.” First they spread-eagle you on a vertical board and slit your neck vertically, from the chin to the collarbone. This severs the larynx and prevents you from screaming. Then they pull your tongue through the slit and watch as you slowly strangle.

1994, Ronald K. Siegel, Whispers: The Voices of Paranoia, Crown, →ISBN, page 276, →ISBN:

Supporting this, they claimed that Nicole must have borrowed money from one of Colombian drug Lords and so fell victim to Colombian necktie or necklace?

1997, Felicia Okeke-Ibezim, O. J. Simpson: The Trial of the Century, Ekwike Books & Publishing, →ISBN, page 36, →ISBN:

A young girl, age eleven, had been slashed across the throat and had her tongue pulled through the cut, reminiscent of the Colombian necktie.

2000, B. J. Whalen, Justifiable Homicide, Ballantine Books, →ISBN, page 243, →ISBN:

His accomplice rushed in behind Angelo, jerked his head back and slashed his neck. Blood gushed from the severed artery, and he slumped to the ground. The first assailant decorated Angelo’s chest with the proverbial “Colombian necktie” in which his tongue was pushed down through his gullet and pulled through the slash in his neck — a popular mobster tactic. They disappeared into the night, leaving him dead, just a few feet from the door of Giovanni’s.

2002, Betty Bradford Byers, The Big Payback, iUniverse, →ISBN, page 109:

There was the Colombian necktie (corte de corbata), when the killer cut a deep groove under the jawline of the victim and pulled the tongue muscle down and through it, so that it lay like a necktie on the chest.

2003, Robin Kirk, More Terrible Than Death: Massacres, Drugs, and America’s War in Colombia, Public Affairs, →ISBN, page 26, →ISBN:

Ruling their territory through unprecedented violence, the Colombian Cocaine cartels turned the streets of Miami, New York, and Los Angeles into a new “wild west.”²⁵ Bringing with them horrific phrases such as the “Colombian Necktie,”²⁶ the narcotraficantes of the late 1970s and 1980s revolutionized the way in which desertion and infidelity to the organization were punished.

2007, Howard Silverstone, Michael Sheetz, Forensic Accounting and Fraud Investigation for Non-Experts, Wiley-IEEE, →ISBN, page 95:

Not only was murder frequently used, but the methods were often quite sadistic, such as the carte de corbata, the notorious “Colombian necktie” in which the victim’s throat is cut longitudinally and the tongue is pulled through to hang like a tie.

2009, Stephen Schneider, Iced: The Story of Organized Crime in Canada, John Wiley and Sons, →ISBN, page 504:

A method of execution in which the victim’s throat is slashed vertically, then his tongue is pulled out through the gaping wound toward the sternum, after which the victim usually dies of asphyxiation or blood loss.

Kolumbianische Krawatte

violent and intimidating method of execution


arboricidal

en-adj

arboricidal (comparative more arboricidal, superlative most arboricidal)

more arboricidal (comparative)
most arboricidal (superlative)


dead men tell no tales

dead men can tell no tales (alternative)

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A dead person can no longer reveal information, especially information which others wish to keep secret.

死無對證 /死无对证

a dead person can no longer reveal information

ме́ртві бджо́ли не гуду́ть (mértvi bdžóly ne hudútʹ, literally “dead bees do not buzz”)


cradle-to-grave

Unsustainable human activities are creating an open loop “cradle-to-grave” system that cannot continue and has one day to reach a conclusion. Closing the loop for renewable resources is the role of changing the “cradle-to-grave” concept to a “cradle-to-cradle” concept as discussed in chapter 1.

2010, Salah El Haggar, Sustainable Industrial Design and Waste Management, Academic Press, →ISBN, page 125:

Politics should be a cradle-to-grave calling: anything else is mere distraction.

2010, Mungo MacCallum, The Monthly, April 2010, Issue 55, The Monthly Ptd Ltd, page 28

The 'cradle-to-grave' approach that the company takes to rolling stock, which typically has an asset lifecycle of up to 35 years, has made the sector attractive to investors - […].

2023 June 14, “Engineering a brighter future for UK rail”, in RAIL, number 985, page 52:

(idiomatic) Spanning an entire lifetime, from birth to death.


amebicide

amebicides (plural)
amoebicide (alternative)
amœbicide (alternative)

From international scientific vocabulary, reflecting New Latin combining forms: ameb- + -icide.

A substance that kills amoebae, usually in the stomach or intestines.

classical compound
international scientific vocabulary


episcopicide

Each year on the anniversary, Henry is whipped in public by monks to cleanse him of the curse of this episcopicide.

2021, Otto English, Fake History, page 73:


thanato-

Combining form of Ancient Greek θάνατος (thánatos, “death”).

uder

死

forming compound words indicating "death"


take a dirt nap

en-verb

take a dirt nap (third-person singular simple present takes a dirt nap, present participle taking a dirt nap, simple past took a dirt nap, past participle taken a dirt nap)

takes a dirt nap (present singular third-person)
taking a dirt nap (participle present)
took a dirt nap (past)
taken a dirt nap (participle past)


terminate with extreme prejudice

terminate with extreme prejudice (third-person singular simple present terminates with extreme prejudice, present participle terminating with extreme prejudice, simple past and past participle terminated with extreme prejudice)

terminates with extreme prejudice (present singular third-person)
terminating with extreme prejudice (participle present)
terminated with extreme prejudice (participle past)
terminated with extreme prejudice (past)

First appears c. 1969. Derives from US military intelligence and CIA documents, in news coverage of the Green Beret Case, and further popularized in the movie Apocalypse Now (1979). A play on the term terminate with prejudice when an employee’s employment is terminated, meaning will not rehire employee to same position in future (i.e., prejudiced against rehiring), hence terminate definitively, i.e., kill.

The government ordered the spies to be terminated with extreme prejudice: they did not want them to expose what they knew in a public trial.

...suggested that he either be isolated or ‘terminated with extreme prejudice.’ This term is said to be an intelligence euphemism for execution.

1969 August 14, Terence Smith, “Details of Green Beret Case Are Reported in Saigon”, in The New York Times:

Colonel Lucas: ... When you find the Colonel, infiltrate his team by whatever means available and terminate the Colonel's command.
Willard: Terminate the Colonel?
...
Civilian: Terminate with extreme prejudice.

(euphemistic, US) To murder; to assassinate.

Apocalypse Now
termination of employment


passing bell

passing bells (plural)
passing-bell (alternative)

What passing-bells for these who die as cattle?
 — Only the monstrous anger of the guns.
 Only the stuttering rifles' rapid rattle
Can patter out their hasty orisons.

1917, Wilfred Owen, Anthem for Doomed Youth:

A bell rung to announce a passing, a death, or funeral; death bell, death knell.


deathfic

en-noun

deathfic (countable and uncountable, plural deathfics)

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(countable, fandom slang) A work of fan fiction centered around the death of a character.


fan death

(South Korea) A form of death supposedly caused by staying overnight in a closed room in which an electric fan is operating.

电风扇致死

death supposedly caused by staying overnight in a closed room with an electric fan


undeadliness

Calque of Middle English undedlynesse (or, in some cases, a continuation rather than a calque), from Old English undēadlīcnes (“immortality”); equivalent to undeadly + -ness; compare German Unsterblichkeit, a similarly formed compound.

der

Although the holy fathers, who were before us, very certainly knew about that which thou formerly askedst; that is, about the undeadliness of men's souls, which was very clear in this that they naught doubted, […]

1852, “A Modern English Version of King Alfred's Blossom-Gatherings from Saint Augustine”, in The whole works of King Alfred the Great, volume 2, page 83:

"If a man might die, and have done with it all! But to meet God! And 'tis no sweven,¹ ne fallacy, this dread undeadliness² — it is real."
1. Dream 2. Immortality.

1875, Emily Sarah Holt, The White Rose of Langley: a story of the court of England in the olden time, page 2:

to find the same / Old traits of time’s undeadliness and fame / In Dante’s visions, and in Shakespeare’s lore, / And Chaucer’s quaint and graphic strains of yore.

1880, Richard Robert Madden, “Farewell lines to an old friend”, in The Memoirs (chiefly autobiographical) from 1798 to 1886 of Richard Robert Madden, published 1891, page 152:

So is the righteous man white in cleanness of soul, and therefore shall he have a white stole of undeadliness in the high Lebanon that is the bliss of heaven.

1929 [p. 1350, a.1396], Dorothy, transl. Jones, Minor works of Walter Hilton, translation of original by Walter Hilton:

He that dwelleth between the terms hath near-hand forsaken deadliness, but not fully, and hath near-hand gotten undeadliness, but not fully.

1957 [p. 1154, a. 1162], Ray C., transl. Petry, “Capitulum VII”, in Late Medieval Mysticism, translation of Benjamin by Richard of Saint Victor, page 106:

To this will I answer thee, that He had been dead, and was clad with undeadliness, and so shall we be at the Day of Doom.

2007 [p. 1350, a. 1400], Evelyn, transl. Underhill, The Cloud of Unknowing, translation of The Cloude of Unknowyng:

The condition of not being susceptible to death; immortality.


bucket list

From bucket + list.
Sense 1 (“list of tasks arising during a meeting”) may allude to a notional bucket in which tasks to be dealt with later are placed. Sense 2 (“list of things to accomplish before one’s death”) refers to kick the bucket (“to die”), bucket in this sense possibly referring to a beam to which a pig is hung by its heels after it has been slaughtered (possibly from Old French buquet (“balance; trebuchet”)). It was coined by the American and British screenwriter Justin Zackham in 1999 when he drew up “Justin’s List of Things to Do before I Kick the Bucket” which he shortened to “Justin’s Bucket List”. The first item on his list was to have a screenplay produced at a major Hollywood studio. After a few years, it occurred to him that the notion of a “bucket list” could be the basis for a film, so he wrote a screenplay about two dying men racing to complete their own bucket lists with the time they had left, which became the film The Bucket List (2007). The term was then popularized by the film.

平生夢想單 /平生梦想单

a list of things to accomplish before one’s death

uppfylla óskir sínar áður en viðkomandi deyr (hrekkur upp af klakknum)

lista rzeczy do zrobienia przed śmiercią

lista de cosas por / para hacer antes de morir

Q: What projects are you working on now and in the near future? [Rob Reiner] I'm hoping by the end of October to be shooting a film I've been working on called "The Bucket List," starring Jack Nicholson and Morgan Freeman. […] They find out they are terminal. They know they don't have much longer to live. It's about working out the issues you need to work out before you die. […] Q: Do you have your own "bucket list"? [Reiner] You know, I don't. I've gone on with my life always trying to do positive things and make things better and the world better. […] I want to see my kids do well, but that's not a "bucket list"

2006 September 2, Peterson Gonzaga, “Reiner gets animated in ‘Everybody’s Hero’”, in Herald News, West Paterson, N.J.: Gannett, →ISSN, →OCLC, page D4, columns 3–4:

I'm a helicopter pilot, not a writer. Still, it's been a dream of mine to someday write a book. It's ranked near the top on my list of things I want to do someday, my "bucket list," if you will.

2009 August 10, Robert Deeter, chapter 8, in Bullseye: Journal of a Black Hawk Pilot, Bloomington, Ind.: AuthorHouse, →ISBN, page 102:

"They told me hiking down into the canyon was on their bucket list." / She nodded. "I hear that all the time. People all over the world have the Grand Canyon on their bucket list." / Jake frowned. "I don't have a bucket list."

2010, Annalisa Daughety, chapter 23, in Love is Grand (A Walk in the Park; 3), Uhrichsville, Oh.: Barbour Publishing, →ISBN, page 168:

The beauty of bucket lists is that just as they represent us and our dreams, like us they also grow and change. You will be surprised once you have begun the bucket list journey at how opportunities spring up around you. New ideas beg to be added to your list. Even the act of completing a bucket list goal can be the source of further exploration.

2014, Lara Krupika, “How to Use this Book”, in Bucket List Living for Moms: Becoming a More Adventurous Parent, Cork, County Cork: BookBaby, →ISBN:

A list of things to accomplish before one's death.

a winter bucket list

(by extension) A list of things to accomplish before a certain deadline or in a certain time period.


death clock

LL-Q1860 (eng)-Flame, not lame-death clock.wav

Keene had a death clock running, counting the days before his final breath, and his work plan was set to meet that last deadline, with a typical project management rigor.

2012, Michel Bruneau, The Emancipating Death of a Boring Engineer:

A computer program or website displaying a countdown to a person's predicted date and time of death.


autoinfanticide

For consider the most lurid implication of Gödel's idea – autoinfanticide.

2015, Roger Highfield, Peter Coveney, The Arrow of Time:

The inventor of a time machine about to commit autoinfanticide in the past

2016, Paul J. Nahin, Time Machine Tales, page 212:

(science fiction) The act of traveling back in time to the past and killing oneself as a baby.


dance on someone's grave

en-verb

dance on someone's grave (third-person singular simple present dances on someone's grave, present participle dancing on someone's grave, simple past and past participle danced on someone's grave)

dances on someone's grave (present singular third-person)
dancing on someone's grave (participle present)
danced on someone's grave (participle past)
danced on someone's grave (past)

LL-Q1860 (eng)-Flame, not lame-dance on someone's grave.wav

This is all aside from my personal disgust at the idea that we should spare any thought for those who would kill us. No one is suggesting dancing on their graves, but neither should we shed even a fraction of a tear for them.

2006 May 1, Lisa, “Spilling out drops of wine at the Seder”, in soc.culture.jewish.moderated (Usenet):

(idiomatic, informal, sometimes derogatory) To celebrate a person's death or downfall triumphantly.


Zombie Jesus

From an (anachronistic) reinterpretation of the resurrection of Jesus as zombification.

But do you honestly think that Jesus' limp corpse could be magically brought back to life by an invisible magician in the sky just so Zombie Jesus can give you everlasting life?

2010, Adam McClaran, Jesus Cries When You Touch Yourself, page 113:

(derogatory, humorous, potentially offensive) Jesus Christ, after having resurrected.


last gasp

LL-Q1860 (eng)-Flame, not lame-last gasp.wav

(by extension) The point of death, or the last period of one's life.


loss of life

en-noun

loss of life (countable and uncountable, plural losses of life)

LL-Q1860 (eng)-Flame, not lame-loss of life.wav

The new age comes through the death of Jesus, and his loss of life brings abundance to everyone.

2004, Susan Miller, Women in Mark's Gospel, page 137:

Chief Superintendent Alasdair Robinson said the device left below the M1 motorway was "sophisticated and substantial" and could have caused huge devastation and loss of life.

2011 April 10, Henry McDonald, The Guardian:


safety coffin

LL-Q1860 (eng)-Flame, not lame-safety coffin.wav

Any coffin specially designed for the occupant to leave it in case of premature burial, such as by warning other people to help him.


murderbot

LL-Q1860 (eng)-Flame, not lame-murderbot.wav


Sixth Commandment

Long before, in the great controversy over smallpox inoculation, he was said to have been an anticlerical heretic who violated the Sixth Commandment and deserved to be stuck in the pillory; [...]

1968, Bernard Bailyn, The origins of American politics, reprint edition, Knopf, page 60:

"And you're not going to kill anybody?"
"Hay, this is your dad," I said, a little hurt. "Sixth commandment, remember?" It didn't mention anything about near-killing.

2011, Mitchell Creepo, Heaven is a Deal, eBookIt.com, →ISBN, page 22:

The Commandment that states that killing a human being is a sin; commonly recited as "You shall not murder", "You shall not kill" or "Thou shalt not kill".


give one's all

en-verb

give one's all (third-person singular simple present gives one's all, present participle giving one's all, simple past gave one's all, past participle given one's all)

gives one's all (present singular third-person)
giving one's all (participle present)
gave one's all (past)
given one's all (participle past)

The Cemeterial Division . . . has taken up the huge task of establishing contact with the mothers or widows of the 30,000 American soldiers who gave their all and whose bodies rest in graves across the sea.

1929 April 10, “Plans for War Mothers Pilgrimage Started”, in Rochester Evening Journal and the Post Express, retrieved 2011-06-18, page 26:

Police officers expressed shock at the news of their fellow officer's death. "He gave his all; he literally gave his all," said Officer Edward Looney.

2005 August 4, Kareem Fahim, “Sniper Kills New York Police Officer in Iraq”, in New York Times, retrieved 2011-06-17:

(idiomatic, euphemistic) To lose one's life while making the utmost effort with full commitment.


lose one's life

lose one's life (third-person singular simple present loses one's life, present participle losing one's life, simple past and past participle lost one's life)

loses one's life (present singular third-person)
losing one's life (participle present)
lost one's life (participle past)
lost one's life (past)

LL-Q1860 (eng)-Flame, not lame-lose one's life.wav

The people so highly resented this law, that our histories tell us, there have been six rebellions raised on that account; wherein one emperor lost his life.

1726 October 28, [Jonathan Swift], Travels into Several Remote Nations of the World. […] [Gulliver’s Travels], volume I, London: […] Benj[amin] Motte, […], →OCLC, part I (A Voyage to Lilliput):

I have no ambition to lose my life on the post-road between St. Petersburgh and Archangel.

1816 June – 1817 April/May (date written), [Mary Shelley], Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus. […], volume (please specify |volume=I to III), London: […] [Macdonald and Son] for Lackington, Hughes, Harding, Mavor, & Jones, published 1 January 1818, →OCLC:

“[H]is own wife lost her life with an accident that come to a horse that hadn't room to turn right with a harrow between the bush and the wall.”

1893, William Butler Yeats, “The Friends of the People of Faery”, in The Celtic Twilight:

“Do you think, Sir, that you could possibly send me on some mission for the paper? . . . anything that had adventure and danger in it. . . .” “You seem very anxious to lose your life.”

1912, Arthur Conan Doyle, chapter 2, in The Lost World […], London; New York, N.Y.: Hodder and Stoughton, →OCLC:

[E]nemy fighters killed 2,320 of the troops who lost their lives in Iraq through December 2.

2006 December 30, Unmesh Kher, “By the Numbers: The U.S. Death Toll”, in Time:

(euphemistic) To die, especially to be killed during involvement in an activity or in some other undertaking.


turn to dust

turn to dust (third-person singular simple present turns to dust, present participle turning to dust, simple past and past participle turned to dust)

turns to dust (present singular third-person)
turning to dust (participle present)
turned to dust (participle past)
turned to dust (past)

If I lost my dreams
Could I keep your trust
Promise that our love
Would not turn to dust

Now he threatens to walk away from Ukraine altogether, impatient to get a deal in time for his 100th-day celebrations on Tuesday. That’s typical too: so often Trump’s grand plans turn to dust because, if he doesn’t get an instant reward, he gets bored and drifts away.

2025 April 25, Jonathan Freedland, “Ukraine has exposed Trump’s true identity: as a vandal, an autocrat, a gangster and a fool”, in The Guardian:

(intransitive, idiomatic) To die or disappear.


you can't take it with you

LL-Q1860 (eng)-Flame, not lame-you can't take it with you.wav

"The clause which—at my death—makes you sole owner of the whole concession. You see—the odds were scarcely even, were they? It wasn't likely anything would happen to you!" . . .
"What's it matter to you now?" Trent said, with unintentional brutality. "You can't take it with you."

1900, E. Phillips Oppenheim, chapter 6, in A Millionaire of Yesterday:

Dealers also quietly bought gold fillings from morticians, proving that you can't take it with you.

1980 January 14, “Business: The Great Sell-Off”, in Time:

You can't take it with you, of course, but your intended heirs may not be able to take it with them, either, if you do not explicitly state through a will who is supposed to get what.

2007 August 3, Conrad de Aenlle, “All the right (and wrong) moves”, in New York Times, retrieved 2011-07-11:

It is not possible to take one's material wealth or possessions to whatever world may await one after death.


Unknown Soldier

In 1920, following World War I, a monument to an Unknown Warrior was established in London and Paris simultaneously to the common memories of all soldiers killed in any war. Since then, monuments to the Unknown Soldier have been raised in many countries, each containing the body of one such unidentified soldier.

The representative of military personnel who have died unidentified without proper burial, usually in war.

Tomb of the Unknown Soldier
Tomb of the Unknown Warrior

tuntematon sotilas

representative of unidentified fallen soldiers


churel

As a churel she now prowls about the neighbourhood with her child in her arms.

1895, William Crooke, North Indian Notes and Queries, page 39:

The Churel, or woman dying in chold-birth, has been mentioned elsewhere.

1936, Rollo Ahmed, The Black Art, London: Long, page 32:

He talked in whispers, and with the utmost respect, of the churel that might be listening overhead.

1953, The Virginia Quarterly Review, volume 29, page 410:

In Hindu folklore, the ghost of a woman who died during childbirth, pregnancy; or a witch.


bleed out

bleed out (third-person singular simple present bleeds out, present participle bleeding out, simple past and past participle bled out)

bleeds out (present singular third-person)
bleeding out (participle present)
bled out (participle past)
bled out (past)
bleed-out (alternative)

But we never got to take the shot I'd been trained to take, that beautiful single shot that takes out a man's head, or the gutshot—Chris Kyle's favorite—that allows him to bleed out and die a little slower, maybe think about all the ways he might have lived a different and better life.

2013, Anthony Swofford, Death of an American Sniper, →ISBN:

(intransitive) To die due to excess bloodloss; to bleed to death.


pay the debt of nature

pay the debt of nature (third-person singular simple present pays the debt of nature, present participle paying the debt of nature, simple past and past participle paid the debt of nature)

pays the debt of nature (present singular third-person)
paying the debt of nature (participle present)
paid the debt of nature (participle past)
paid the debt of nature (past)

The venerable father of the human race had now himself paid the debt of nature.

1828, Henry Hunter, Sacred biography, or, The history of the patriarchs, volume 1, page 36:

Ten years after he had seen his son married^([sic]), become a church member, and give up his carnal delights, old Deacon Smith paid the debt of nature. His last days he always called his best days.

1850, T. S. Arthur, “Deacon Smith and his Violin”, in Sketches of Life and Character, Philadelphia: J. W. Bradley, →OCLC, page 76:


death erection

A post-mortem priapism observed in the corpses of human males who have been executed, particularly by hanging.


funeration

en-noun

funeration (usually uncountable, plural funerations)

From Latin fūnerātiō, from fūnerātus, past participle of fūnerō (“I funerate”), from fūnus, fūneris (“funeral”).

For in the Rites of funeration they did use to anoint the dead body, with Aromatick Spices and Oyntments, before they buried them.

1693, Sir Norman Knatchbull, Annotations upon some difficult texts in all the books of the New Testament:

(obsolete) the act of burying with funeral rites


death certificate

death certificate (plural death certificates)

Meanwhile, the death certificate was as good as signed by the North Eastern Region on December 1 last, when all mineral workings were withdrawn from the H. & B. route and seven additional services were substituted on the N.E.R. route out of Hull; [...].

1959 February, “Talking of Trains: The H. & B.R. fades away”, in Trains Illustrated, page 64:

A document issued by a medical practitioner, or by a registrar, certifying the date, location and cause of a person's death as later entered in an official register of deaths.


join the choir invisible

en-verb

join the choir invisible (third-person singular simple present joins the choir invisible, present participle joining the choir invisible, simple past and past participle joined the choir invisible)

joins the choir invisible (present singular third-person)
joining the choir invisible (participle present)
joined the choir invisible (participle past)
joined the choir invisible (past)

LL-Q1860 (eng)-Flame, not lame-join the choir invisible.wav

From a poem by George Eliot, O May I Join the Choir Invisible, further popularized by the "dead parrot" sketch from Monty Python's Flying Circus.

This parrot is no more. It has ceased to be. It's expired and gone to see its maker. This is a late parrot. It's a stiff. Bereft of life, it rests in peace. If you hadn't nailed it to the perch it would be pushing up the daisies. It's run down the curtain and joined the choir invisible. This is an ex-parrot.

1969 December 7, “Full Frontal Nudity”, in Monty Python's Flying Circus, season 1, episode 8, spoken by Mr Praline (John Cleese), Dead Parrot sketch:

Made me wonder whether I should invest in a portable MRI unit to monitor birds about to join the choir invisible for any signs of brain activity.

2005, Sean Dooley, The Big Twitch, Sydney: Allen and Unwin, page 30:

(intransitive, chiefly humorous, euphemistic) To die.


thanatocracy

/θænəˈtɒkɹəsi/

/θænəˈtɑkɹəsi/

Kwitny's account of the medical gridlock that has paralyzed Washington during the Bush and Reagan Administrations provides a bleak picture of the indecisiveness and passivity of federal officials, whom many gay activists have described as the bureaucratic instruments of nothing less than a Republican thanatocracy.

1992 November 1, Daniel Harris, “The AIDS Guerrillas : ACCEPTABLE RISKS, By Jonathan Kwitny (Poseidon: $24; 384 pp.)”, in Los Angeles Times:

The enactment of policies held to lead, directly or indirectly, to death or an increased risk of death.


slaught

From Middle English slaught, slagt, slaȝt, from Old English sliht, sleaht, sleht, slieht (“a stroke, a striking, a flash of lightning, slaughter, murder, death by violence, the deadly stroke of disease, battle, what is to be killed, animals for slaughter”), from Proto-Germanic *slahtō, *slahtiz (“beating, hitting, killing, murder”), from Proto-Indo-European *slek- (“to beat, pound”).
Cognate with Dutch slacht (“slaughter”), German Schlacht (“killing, battle”), Swedish slakt (“slaughter”), Icelandic slátta (“slaughter”). Related to English slay.


morkin

Probably from mort + -kin (compare mortling); or from Old French mortekine, a variant of mortecine, from Medieval Latin morticinus. Compare also Swedish murken (“putrefied”), Icelandic morkinn (“putrid”).

Could hee^([sic]) not sacrifice / Some sorry morkin that unbidden dies, / Or meagre heifer, or some rotten ewe, […]

(obsolete) An animal that has died of disease or by mischance.


Florida flambe

Florida flambes (plural)
Florida flambé (alternative)

Medina was killed, then cooked, becoming the second inmate in seven years to suffer the Florida flambe.

1997 April 5, Leonard Pitts, “Fiery execution shows lie of ‘humane’ death penalty”, in The Free Lance-Star, page A15:

There's a nice new death chamber in Terre Haute, Ind., just waiting for ya. No Florida flambe there. A slight boo-boo occurred not long ago when Florida fired up "Old Sparky" to execute a criminal. The guy's face mask flared up. Most grisly. A Florida district attorney glibly said the moral of the mishap was not to commit crime in Florida if you don't want the same treatment.

1997 June 6, Elizabeth Jarnagin, “Pro-life consistency means opposing death penalty”, in Amarillo Globe-News:

This is why harris should go down in Florida Flambe.

2005 August 19, Cha, “Ms. Harris's "felon purge"”, in democraticunderground.com:

(derogatory) Burning (catching fire) during execution by electric chair.

Capital punishment in Florida
Old Sparky


trental

From Medieval Latin trentāle directly or via Old French trentel, from the neuter substantive of *Vulgar Latin trenta + -ālis (“-al: forming adjectives”), from Latin trīgintā (“thirty”).

(Christianity, archaic) Synonym of month's mind, the commemorative service held on the 30th day after burial.


Porajmos

Coined by a Kalderash Romani acquaintance of, and popularized by, Ian Hancock in 1990s. From Romani porajmos (“devouring”).

(historical) The planned and attempted genocide of the Romani people during the Second World War by Nazi Germany and its allies.


halfdead

From Middle English halfdede, from Old English healfdēad (“half-dead”), from Proto-Germanic *halbadaudaz (“halfdead”), equivalent to half- + dead. Cognate with West Frisian healdea (“halfdead”), Dutch halfdood (“halfdead”), German Low German halvdood (“halfdead”), German halbtot (“halfdead”), Swedish halvdöd (“halfdead”).

half dead (alternative)
half-dead (alternative)

But even after he was beyond the danger zone, he still felt halfdead.

1999, Patti Massman, Susan Rosser, A Matter of Betrayal:

Until the day King Nax had seized him and shattered his legs—not broken them, but shattered them, eight men taking turns with a mallet—and then sent him home, halfdead, to his wife, Aliss, in the northern Dells.

Some may be halfdead physically; they need people to visit them in the hospital or in their homes. But there are many more who are halfdead in other ways.

2010, Wayne Gordon, Who Is My Neighbor?:

[...] from a vantage point of security, the lawyer is taught to ask the question from the vantage point of one lying halfdead by the side of the road.

2010, Robert A Gagnon, The Bible and Homosexual Practice:


redskirt

LL-Q1860 (eng)-Flame, not lame-redskirt.wav

From red + skirt. Patterned after redshirt, which derived from the tendency for male security officers, who wore red shirts, to die on episodes of Star Trek: The Original Series. Female crew members wore minidresses, but only one red-uniformed female character was killed during the series' run, in the episode "By Any Other Name."

Wasn't there that episode where the aliens turned everyone into little blocks of styrofoam, and one of the aliens turned a redskirt and a redshirt into cubes and crumbled one of them? And then Scotty got really drunk. I seem to recall that the redskirt bought it that time.

2007 February 10, Marc Goodman, “Re: Response to Steven Pinker's 'The Mystery of Consciousness'”, in alt.religion.kibology (Usenet):

(fiction, fandom slang, rare) An unimportant or expendable female character, especially one introduced only to be killed in order to underscore the peril faced by important characters.


likam

likams (plural)
leccam (alternative)
lekame (alternative)
lecam (alternative)
likame (alternative)
licame (alternative)
lichame (alternative)

From Middle English likam, licam, licame, lichame, from Old English līchama (“body”), from Proto-West Germanic *līkahamō, from Proto-Germanic *līkahamô, equivalent to like (“body”) + hame (“covering, case”).
In Old English, līchama was the general term for "body," while līċ had come to mean a dead body specifically. Cognate with Scots lekame (“body”), West Frisian lichem (“body”), Dutch lichaam (“body”), German Leichnam (“body, corpse”), Danish legeme (“body”), Swedish lekamen (“body”), Icelandic líkami (“body”).


voodoo death

en-noun

voodoo death (countable and uncountable, plural voodoo deaths)

Sudden death brought about by a strong emotional shock such as fear.


deathday

From Middle English deth-day, deth day, dethe-day, deþ day, from Old English dēaþdæġ (“day of one's death, deathday”), equivalent to death + day. Compare birthday. Compare also German Low German Doodsdag (“deathday”), German Todestag (“deathday”), Danish dødsdag (“deathday”), Swedish dödsdag (“deathday”).

inh

"Is it her deathday?" I asked. "Nope," he said.

1996, Patrick O'Leary, Door Number Three, →ISBN, page 362:

It only just dawned on me that intrinsically it felt better to honor her on her birthday rather than her deathday. It has always struck me as odd that more people remember the day Elvis or John Lennon died than the dates they were born.

2009, Duchess Dale, How May I Love You Today?, →ISBN, page 199:

[…] just then we needed a tenth man and needed him badly, because one of us had a deathday to observe and wanted to say the mourner's prayer.

2011, Sholem Aleichem, Tevye the Dairyman and The Railroad Stories:

The anniversary of a death, the date upon which someone earlier died.


Mania

From Latin Mania, related to manes (“spirits of the dead”).

(Roman mythology) The goddess of the dead and ghosts.


algor mortis

From Latin algor (“cold, coldness”) + mortis (“of death”, genitive singular of mors), literally, “the cold of death”.

The reduction in body temperature following death.


micromort

From micro- (“one millionth”) + mort (“death”).

prefix

This is described as 10 micromorts per operation, and we can compare this figure with other average risks, such as skydiving (also 10 micromorts), or riding a motorcycle in the UK (yoou^([sic]) have to go around 60 miles to rack up 10 micromorts).

2012 February 16, David Spiegelhalter, “Microlives: A lesson in risk taking”, in BBC Future:

Taking one pill from the jar amounts to being exposed to exactly one micromort. The amount you are willing to pay to avoid this risk is called your micromort value. Micromorts help us reason about decisions with small probabilities but very serious outcomes, such as deciding whether to undergo surgery that eliminates life-long pain but fails with a 1% probability, resulting in immediate death.

2020, Gregor Hohpe, The Software Architect Elevator […] , O'Reilly, →ISBN, page 49:

A unit of risk equivalent to a one-in-a-million probability of death.


Enma

From Japanese 閻魔 (Enma). Doublet of Yama.

(Japanese mythology, Shinto) The Japanese name for Yama, the Hindu, Buddhist and Chinese god who presides over naraku (hell). A deity and/or personification of death. (Compare Izanami and the Shinigami.)


death chamber

The room in which capital punishment is carried out.


pale rider

A reference to the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, as the rider of a pale horse is Death.

(idiomatic) Death, the Grim Reaper or angel of death; and one of the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse.


kingslayer

LL-Q1860 (eng)-Naomi Persephone Amethyst (NaomiAmethyst)-kingslayer.wav


ghost marriage

Marriage with a dead person or between dead people.


Shinigami

/ˌʃɪn.ɪˈɡɑːmi/

(Japanese mythology, Shinto) The deity and/or personification of death. (Compare Izanami and Enma).


Alpheus

From Ancient Greek Ἀλφειός (Alpheiós, literally “whitish”).

der

Alfeios (alternative)
Alphaeus (alternative)
Alpheius (alternative)


Santa Muerte

Unadapted borrowing from Spanish Santa Muerte (literally “Holy Death”).

ubor

A female folk saint venerated primarily in Mexico and among Mexican-Americans in the United States. A personification of death, also associated with healing, protection, and safe delivery to the afterlife.


join the majority

en-verb

join the majority (third-person singular simple present joins the majority, present participle joining the majority, simple past and past participle joined the majority)

joins the majority (present singular third-person)
joining the majority (participle present)
joined the majority (participle past)
joined the majority (past)

go over to the majority
go over to the majority#English

Synonym of go over to the majority (“to die”).


go over to the majority

go<goes,,went,gone> over to the majority

go over to the majority (third-person singular simple present goes over to the majority, present participle going over to the majority, simple past went over to the majority, past participle gone over to the majority)

goes over to the majority (present singular third-person)
going over to the majority (participle present)
went over to the majority (past)
gone over to the majority (participle past)

Referring to the fact that most of the people who have ever been born are now dead.


off with someone's head

From the common use in past times of decapitation as a method of execution for prominent persons.

Some nerve! Off with their heads! shouted the master of ceremonies with mock ferocity, while the audience laughed.

"I see!" said the Queen, who had meanwhile been examining the roses. "Off with their heads!" and the procession moved on, three of the soldiers remaining behind to execute the unfortunate gardeners, who ran to Alice for protection. "You shan't be beheaded!" said Alice, and she put them into a large flower-pot that stood near.

1866, Lewis Carroll, “Chapter 8: The Queen's Croquet-Ground”, in Alice's Adventures in Wonderland^(https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Alice%27s_Adventures_in_Wonderland_(1866)/Chapter_8), Macmillan and Company:

(usually humorous) Used to express a desire to kill the person in question.


resurrection man

en-noun

resurrection man (plural resurrection men)

resurrection men (plural)
resurrection-man (alternative)

resurrection (“the act of rising from the dead and becoming alive again”) + man

Persons (under the name of resurrection-men) continue their business, getting from 1 guinea to 5 or 6, according to the value set upon the corpse they take up.

1781, “R. King”, in Compl. Mod. London Spy, section 106:

Earlier exhumations seem to have caused very little popular concern;... but later... the trade of ‘resurrection man’ became commoner, and attracted the lowest dregs of the vicious classes.

1910, Encyclopædia Britannica, I. 937/2:

(euphemistic, historical) A man who sells cadavers to anatomists, surgeons, etc., especially by exhuming corpses from graves; a graverobber.


catslaughter

From cat + slaughter. Compare manslaughter.

After a long and patient investigation of facts, the Coroner returned a verdict of wilful catslaughter against a party or parties unknown.

1862, Mrs. Alfred Gatty, Aunt Judy's Letters, page 93:

Bill intends to file a charge of "catslaughter" against the villian when caught.

'... And then he committed — catslaughter.'
Caleb, although sensible that his leg had been pulled, roared with laughter.

1934, Horace Annesley Vachell, Nether Applewhite: A Story of Strange Lives in an English Village:

Had Barkley done in the Topeka cat, it may have been manslaughter, or catslaughter, I guess, but not murder.

2006, Al Martinez, Barkley: A Dog's Journey, →ISBN:

The woman was suing the fire service for catslaughter.

2010, Michael Lawrence, Jiggy McCue: Kid Swap, Hachette UK, →ISBN:

The killing of a cat, the slaughter of cats.


deerslaughter

From deer + slaughter. Compare manslaughter.

Some centuries ago, in the royal forests of England the penalty was higher for deerslaughter than for manslaughter; but that was unreasonable, and the present arrangement shows the progress of law-reform.

1883, Lippincott's Monthly Magazine: A Popular Journal of General Literature:

They have behaved badly: charges against them now stand at murder of one kitten, chickenslaughter in the second degree, deerslaughter in the first degree, conspiracy to kill more deer, attempted murder of a goat (two overt acts), ...

... until I noticed a mangled carcass splayed across the breakdown lane, decided to stop and inspect it and took notes on the anatomy of victims of vehicular deerslaughter.

2009, Nate Jordon, Various, Monkey Puzzle #6, Monkey Puzzle Press, →ISBN, page 7:

(rare) The killing of a deer, the slaughter of deer; cervicide.


eternal sleep

(idiomatic, euphemistic) Death, eternal oblivion


die in the last ditch

en-verb

die in the last ditch (third-person singular simple present dies in the last ditch, present participle dying in the last ditch, simple past and past participle died in the last ditch)

dies in the last ditch (present singular third-person)
dying in the last ditch (participle present)
died in the last ditch (participle past)
died in the last ditch (past)

Popularized from an 1847 translation by Agnes Strickland of a quote attributed to William of Orange during the French invasion of 1672 on his being advised to surrender Holland to Louis XIV: "No, I mean to die in the last ditch."

To fight till death; to die rather than surrender.


article of death

And the mortal labouring of the pulse has a remarkable quickness; the heart trembling towards the article of death, and almost confounding its systole and diastole.

1638, Francis Bacon, History of Life and Death, section IX:

What can it materially signify in the article of death, how the corporeal or mental powers are tried and distressed, if the soul is safe, the blest reversion of immortality secure?


in articulo mortis

/ˌɪnɑːˌtɪkjʊləʊˈmɔːtɪs/

LL-Q1860 (eng)-Vealhurl-in articulo mortis.wav

Borrowed from Latin in articulō mortis (literally “in the article of death”), from in (“during; at”, preposition governing the ablative) + articulō, ablative singular form of articulus (“a joint; figuratively: a point in time, a moment”) + mortis, genitive singular of mors (“death”).

bor

My attention, for the last three years, had been repeatedly drawn to the subject of Mesmerism; and, about nine months ago, it occurred to me, quite suddenly, that in the series of experiments made hitherto, there had been a very remarkable and most unaccountable omission: — no person had as yet been mesmerized in articulo mortis.

1845, Edgar Allan Poe, The Facts in the Case of M. Valdemar:

At the moment of death. (In law, especially canon, or church, law, this expression can mean that someone has been given special permission by a competent authority to enter an organization or to receive some sort of exemption or permission at some point not long before they die, such as receiving diaconal or presbyteral ordination or entering religious profession.)


Holodomor

Holodomors (plural)
Golodomor (alternative)
holodomor (alternative)

/ˌhɒlədəˈmɔː(ɹ)/

Late 1980s, from Ukrainian Голодомо́р (Holodomór), from го́лод (hólod, “hunger, famine”) + мор (mor, “mass death, exhaustion”). Compare мори́ти (morýty, “kill by hunger or exhaustion”, verb). Not related to Holocaust.

another famine that affected Kazakhstan during Soviet times

Some of the publications of the Association’s regional branches are also steeped in xenophobia and anti-Semitism (for example, the proceedings of the 2003 Kharkiv conference “The Holodomors in Ukraine: Reasons, Victims, Perpetrators”).

2008, Liudmyla Grynevych [Hrynevych], “The Present State of Ukrainian Historiography on the Holodomor and Prospects for its Development,” Harriman Review, v 16, n 2 (November, “Holodomor 1932–33: Papers from the 75th-Anniversary Conference”), p 17

(historical, rare) А famine with mass deaths, especially one of the Soviet famines in 1921–22, 1932–33, or 1946–47.


unlawful death

"In this case, the knife did not have to be used [...] It was used and it caused an unlawful death."...Crown Prosecutor, Ron Hogan.

2014, Tony Blais, “Edmonton court hears arguments in Jasper stabbing”, in Sun News:

criminal homicide of a human being; manslaughter or murder or infanticide.


Calque of Russian груз-200 (gruz-200), груз-две́сти (gruz-dvésti). Various theories exist regarding the Russian term.

(code word, euphemistic) Casualties for transportation in the Soviet and modern Russian military. In official use, cargo 200 refers to bodies contained in zinc-lined coffins, but in a military context it may be used for dead bodies as they are transported from the battlefield.

Cargo 200
Cargo 200 (code name)
Cargo 200 (film)


nepoticide

en-noun

nepoticide (countable and uncountable, plural nepoticides)

nepoticides (plural)
nepocide (alternative rare)

From Latin nepōs, nepōtis (“nephew”) + -cide.

The new accusation brought by Urban against Manfred of murdering his sister-in-law's embassador – it may be observed that, tacitly, he acquits him of parricide, fratricide, and nepoticide – requires a little explanation.

1856, Mrs. William Busk, Mediæval Popes, Emperors, Kings, and Crusaders: Or, Germany, Italy and Palestine, from A.D. 1125 to A.D. 1268, volume IV, London: Hookham and Sons, →OCLC, page 294:

[Charles] Dickens did not get to work out the interplay between these varying guardians and their various wards; and if the murder was to be a nepoticide, it remains forever shrouded by non-completion.

1975, Jerome Hamilton Buckley, The Worlds of Victorian Fiction (Harvard English Studies; 6), Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, →ISBN, page 30:

The idea of parricide should be defined elastically enough not only to include avunculicide but to make it optional whether the youth or his father takes the initiative in expressing the antagonism between them. In the story from New Guinea, there is sexual jealousy between a father and son, and the father eventually kills the son instead of the other way around. In the Trukese story, we have an attempt at nepoticide, for the uncle tries to kill his nephew.

1995, Lowell Edmunds, Alan Dundes, editors, Oedipus: A Folklore Casebook, Madison, Wis.: University of Wisconsin Press, →ISBN, page 64:

The Injuns get to Naturmitgefuhl by the metaphor of a family: if you don't throw the roe-plump squeteague back, that is a sort of nepoticide.

2001, Adrian Trehorse, The Last Angry White Man, Lincoln, Neb.: Writers Club Press, →ISBN, page 154:

Terms related to familicide include filicide (the killing of one's child or children), uxoricide (the killing of one's wife), fratricide or sororicide (the killing of one's brother or sister), avunculicide (the killing of one's uncle), and nepoticide (the killing of one's nephew).

2014, Albert Lee Strickland, “Familicide”, in Michael John Brennan, editor, The A–Z of Death and Dying: Social, Medical, and Cultural Aspects, Santa Barbara, Calif.: Greenwood Publishing Group, →ISBN, pages 205–206:

He was my nephew as well, so what is that? Fratricide is brothers. Filicide is sons. Nepoticide. That's the one.

2014 June 1, David Benioff, D[aniel] B[rett] Weiss, “The Mountain and the Viper”, in Game of Thrones, season 4, episode 8:

(countable, uncountable) The killing of one's own nephew.


cause of death

Cancers are common diseases; in the aggregate, they are among the leading causes of death nationally and worldwide, and their incidence is increasing as the population ages.

2015 February 26, Francis S. Collins, Harold Varmus, “A New Initiative on Precision Medicine”, in The New England Journal of Medicine, volume 372, number 9, →DOI, pages 793–794:

The official cause of a human death as typically determined by a coroner during an autopsy and included on the death certificate of a deceased person.


end of watch

The date and time at which a police officer was killed while on duty.


die-in

From die + -in; modelled on lie-in and sit-in.

By reclaiming the streets through such actions as spontaneous (unpermitted) marches, critical mass bicycle convergences, or staged theatrics (such as the die-ins protesting the Iraq war), activists literally and rhetorically transform corporate space into public, autonomous zones.

2010, Christina R. Foust, Transgression as a Mode of Resistance: Rethinking Social Movement in and Era of Corporate Globalization:

The current die-ins are part of a movement to end police brutality against and the mass incarceration of black and brown people, and have drawn allies from different races, generations and faiths. When non-black participants join black people in die-ins, they affirm the need for institutional change – but they also visibly highlight the remaining disparities facing black and brown people.

2014 December 19, Paul M Farber, “Die-ins demand that we bear witness to black people's fears that they'll be next”, in The Guardian Online:

The funeral is the culmination of Extinction Rebellion’s actions at London fashion week. They also staged a die-in outside one of the show venues on Friday and a swarm outside Victoria Beckham’s show on Sunday, with protesters holding placards reading “fashion = ecocide” and “the ugly truth about fashion”.

2019 September 17, Lauren Cochrane, “Extinction Rebellion stage funeral at London fashion week finale”, in The Guardian:

A form of protest where a group of people in a public area lie on the ground to simulate being dead.


Samudaripen

Coined by linguist Marcel Courthiade, from Romani samudaripen (“mass killing”), from sa (“all”) + mudaripen (“killing”), from mudarel (“kill”); compare holokausto.

Synonym of Porajmos (“planned and attempted genocide of the Romani people”).


godslaughter

From god + slaughter. Compare manslaughter.


eugenocide

Practiced on an international scale, eugenocide will do much to prevent lingering, tortuous death by starvation, occasioned so often by overbrowse in underdeveloped nations.

1971, Intellectual Digest - Volume 2, page 286:

It was the "first of the modest schemes for the ecological conservation and harvesting of newborns, which we have come to know as the science of eugenocide."

1971, The Scriblerian - Volumes 4-5, page 99:

Wolfensberger (1981) refers to the particular effort to eliminate people with disabilities as eugenocide.

1994, Richard Sobsey, Violence and Abuse in the Lives of People with Disabilities, →ISBN, page 115:

The elimination of weak or defective people in an attempt to improve the gene pool.


involuntary manslaughter

involuntary manslaughter (countable and uncountable, plural involuntary manslaughters)

Ruth was prosecuted for involuntary manslaughter after she hit Tony with a car.

Reckless killing of a human being without malice aforethought and intention.

uagtsomt manddrab

unlawful killing of a human being without intent to do so

constructive manslaughter

unlawful killing without malice aforethought


push up daisies

en-verb

push up daisies (third-person singular simple present pushes up daisies, present participle pushing up daisies, simple past and past participle pushed up daisies)

pushes up daisies (present singular third-person)
pushing up daisies (participle present)
pushed up daisies (participle past)
pushed up daisies (past)
push daisies (alternative)
push up the daisies (alternative)

In allusion to the daisy flowers growing over a dead person's grave. Originated in World War I.

(idiomatic, euphemistic or humorous) To be dead.