worm food

food for worms (alternative)
worm-food (alternative)
worm's food (alternative)
wormfood (alternative)

"Say, have ye a drug that will make worm's food of your enemy in an hour?"

1830, J. Y. A. "The Powder Plot," The Olio Vol. 4, p. 246 (Google preview)

At a state clemency board hearing earlier this month, a prosecutor said that Mr. Parker once joked that he had turned the Warrens into "worm food."

1996 May 29, Kevin Sack, “Awaiting Execution, And Finding Buddha”, in New York Times, retrieved 2015-06-24:

"It's something that you want to do instead of being ashes or worm food, to be some kind of asset instead of being in the ground," she said.

2007 May 20, Thomas Peipert, “Donors Hope Plastinated Bodies Educate”, in Washington Post, retrieved 2015-06-24:

[F]or those of us who think that the grave is the end of us, when we shall become food for worms, the sensible course is to make the most of every passing hour.

2012 June 28, Allan Massie, “At some point your luck will run out”, in Telegraph, UK, retrieved 2015-06-24:

Texas Republican Rep. Mike Conaway said, “I can’t imagine an atheist accompanying a notification team as they go into some family’s home to let them have the worst news of their life and this guy says, ‘You know, that’s it — your son’s just worms, I mean, worm food.’”

2013 December 3, Victoria Bekiempis, “Atheists in Foxholes Want Chaplains, Too”, in Newsweek, retrieved 2015-06-24:

(idiomatic, often darkly humorous, dysphemistic) One or more corpses, especially in a state of decay; remains.


deadland

Does the hideous famine that gnaws the entrails with fiery fangs and burns up the wrenched and tortured tissues till the land sickens with its burden of deadland dying—does that show His pity?

1905, Frederick C Vernon-Harcourt, From Stage to Cross: The Record of a Rolling Stone, page 236:

A band of iron fastens around his neck, a long chain drags him to the ground, pulling him away from his people to the deadland of the south — to the land of strangers, unknown and terrifying.

Nations that imprison, torture, assassinate, or drive their writers into exile fall into the deadlands of their own darkness.

2011, Ben Okri, A Time For New Dreams, →ISBN:


sheloshim

/ʃ(ə)lɒˈʃɪm/

From the Hebrew שְׁלוֹשִׁים (shloshím, “thirty”).

S'fardim commonly dedicate the [grave]stone at the end of sh'loshim

2001, David L. Lieber, Jules Harlow, Etz Hayim: Torah and Commentary, page 214:

(Judaism) A period of thirty days after the burial of a deceased person, during which a mourner is forbidden to do certain things, such as marrying or shaving.


iminoctadine

(chemistry) A particular fungicide with the formula of C₁₈H₄₁N₇.


sokushinbutsu

From Japanese 即身仏 (そくしんぶつ, sokushinbutsu, literally “Buddha immediately [turning into] his body”).

bor

Buddha immediately 􂀿turning into􂁀 his body

(historical) A Buddhist monk observing austerity to the point of death and mummification.


Islamicide

What we need to straighten this mess out is both tyrannicide and homocide. I am sure you would want to add Islamicide too, or something like it.

2006 March 31, Bob, “Re: Weirder election than Battlestar Galactica's”, in alt.battlestar-galactica (Usenet):

Both of these social acts (evils) are or have overtones of being religious-genocides—Judaocide and Islamicide.

2009, Kenneth Vaux, America in God's World, page 82:

Islamicide, always justifiable. […] Pislam must be nuked back into the 7th century where it belongs...along w/its collaborators/apologists/symps.

2009 January 22, ÇDoügßT, “The squatters will leave!”, in alt.religion.islam (Usenet):

(nonstandard, rare) The killing of Muslims.


plead the belly

en-verb

plead the belly (third-person singular simple present pleads the belly, present participle pleading the belly, simple past and past participle pleaded the belly)

pleads the belly (present singular third-person)
pleading the belly (participle present)
pleaded the belly (participle past)
pleaded the belly (past)

LL-Q1860 (eng)-Flame, not lame-plead the belly.wav

She isn't hanged, while in jail, because she pleads the belly.

1994, Leslie Scalapino, Defoe, Sun and Moon Press, →ISBN:

Over 25 per cent of the 463 women who were sentenced to death at the Old Bailey pleaded the belly between 1674 and 1699, and 38 per cent from 1700 to 1724, though a much smaller proportion did so later.

2009, Shani D'Cruze, Louise A. Jackson, Women, Crime and Justice in England since 1660, Palgrave Macmillan, →ISBN:

I was telling them only the other day about pregnant women avoiding the Drop in the eighteenth century by pleading the belly.

2013, M.J. Trow, Maxwell's Chain, Allison & Busby, →ISBN:

(historical) To attempt to use one's claimed pregnancy to avoid execution.


porcicide

(very rare) The killing of a pig or pigs.


death cult

Although this Death-Cult calls itself scientific, we have not yet heard of any careful or other collecting of statistics about appearances through mediums of the same deceased person at more than two places at once.

1889 February 18, The Path, volume 3, page 351:

As regards the significance of the use of plants in the death cult of the Egyptians, we must make a distinction between the edibles which were ordinarily placed in earthen vessels on the floor of the sepulchre […]

1892 August 13, The Literary Digest, volume 5:

We meet the same pattern at the Panathenaia dedicated to Athena, because death cults both in the Agora (market place) and on the Acropolis were of major importance in connection with the cult of the goddess.

2008, Evy Johanne Håland, Women, Pain and Death: Rituals and Everyday Life on the Margins of Europe and Beyond:

A religious movement that worships death or the dead.

A religious group that requires demonstrations of faith involving the risk of death.


toe tag

But my strangest job was picking up dead bodies for a mortuary. . . . I had to put toe tags on the bodies.

1984 August, Joseph R. Levy, "Movies: Revenge of Tim Metcalfe," Cincinnati Magazine, p. 13 (Google preview)

"Racing in Delaware was so dead and buried you could have put a toe tag on it," Mr. Drucker said.

1997 May 25, Elsa Brenner, “Assessing The Future Of Yonkers Raceway”, in New York Times, retrieved 2015-12-19:

Once a body is brought back to the makeshift morgue at the airport in Gulfport, Mississippi, a forensic pathologist assigns a chip to it. Says Hargrove, ". . . it's an advanced form of the toe tag."

2005 September 23, Siobhan Morrissey, “Identifying the Dead: the Electronic Toe Tag”, in Time, retrieved 2015-12-19:

An identifying label attached to the toe of a deceased person, especially in a morgue.


gallicide

"A Cock has the Misfortune to be called in Latin by the same Word which signifies a Frenchman: So that nothing could so well represent, or be represented by the One as the Other.... Gallicide, or Cock-Throwing, was first introduced by way of contempt to the French, and to exasperate the Minds of the People against that Nation..."

1737, “An Enquiry into the original Meaning of Cock-Throwing on Shrove-Tuesday”, in The Gentleman's Magazine, volume VII, pages 6–7:

"Gallicide, or cock-throwing, the brutal custom of battering or pelting with sticks or stones a cock tied to a stake, is supposed to have originated in the time of King Edward the Third, when England and France appear to have indulged in provocations of more than ordinary resentment. The latin word gallus, by a vile pun, was equally expressive of a Frenchman and a cock; and poor chanticleer was doomed, as in effigy, to suffer the barbarities metaphorically intended for our continental neighbors."

1855, Jacob Henry Burn, A Descriptive Catalogue of the London Traders, Tavern, and Coffee-house Tokens Current in the Seventeenth Century, London: Arthur Taylor, page 82:

"To paraphrase the ecologist Garett Hardin: If an embryo or fetus is a human being, then an acorn is an oak tree, and an egg a chicken. Scrambling an egg is then gallicide, and crushing acorns, deforestation."

1986, Carl Djerassi, “Abortion in the United States: politics or policy?”, in Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, volume 42, number 4, page 41:

"-cide: the killing or destruction of; or a killer of; or related to the killing of... [gallicide] fowl, especially chicken or turkeys; also gallinicide"

2002, Chris Aldrich, The Aldrich Dictionary of Phobias and Other Word Families, Trafford Publishing, page 13:

"Smith had no idea that gallicide would soon become a regular staple of the global poultry trade."

2007, Andrew Nikiforuk, Pandemonium: How Globalization and Trade are Putting the World at Risk, page 9:

The killing of a chicken, especially the former sport of cock-throwing; or, humorously, the killing of a Frenchman.


come to a sticky end

come to a sticky end (third-person singular simple present comes to a sticky end, present participle coming to a sticky end, simple past came to a sticky end, past participle come to a sticky end)

comes to a sticky end (present singular third-person)
coming to a sticky end (participle present)
came to a sticky end (past)
come to a sticky end (participle past)
meet a sticky end (alternative)

Newbery in England and Isaiah Thomas in the U.S.A. insisted that their books for children were of a high moral tone. Children had to be good in order to escape from hell, and most bad children came to a very sticky end.

1971, Gwen White, Antique Toys And Their Background, page 139:

(idiomatic, British) To die unpleasantly due to one's actions.


bodysnatching

(historical) The illicit theft of cadavers, especially by exhuming them from graves, to sell to them to anatomists, surgeons, etc.


kiyi

From the pronunciation of the abbreviation KIA (killed in action).

You know that Doc's been treating him for melancholy and depression... ever since he got that kiyi about his son... … Kiyi: K.I.A.: Killed In Action letter from the War Dept.

1940s, Sam Glanzman, "The Kiyi", in Our Army at War #258, July 1973

(US military slang) An official letter informing of a person killed in action.

пахава́льная

an official letter informing of a person killed in action


androcide

From andro- + -cide, by analogy with genocide and homicide.


assisted dying

I finished ECT in August 2020, and after a period of accepting there was no more treatment, I applied for assisted dying in December that year. It’s a long and complicated process. It’s not like you ask for assisted dying on a Monday and you’re dead by Friday.

2024 May 16, Harriet Sherwood, quoting Zoraya ter Beek, “Dutch woman, 29, granted euthanasia approval on grounds of mental suffering”, in The Guardian, →ISSN:

The administration of medical procedures to hasten an individual's death; a legal form of assisted suicide.


geocide

/ˈd͡ʒiːəʊsaɪd/

[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

[D]estruction of any species or the serious impairment of any part of the global environment should be seen as geocide, which deprives humans of their right to a healthy environment.

1993 fall, Lynn Berat, “Defending the Right to a Healthy Environment: Toward a Crime of Geocide in International Law”, in Boston University International Law Journal, volume 11, Boston, Mass.: Boston University School of Law, →ISSN, →OCLC, page 343:

Two common terms used to characterize injuries to the environment include “geocide” and “ecocide,” terms particularly applicable to rain forest damage because it is irreparable.

1997, Virginia Journal of International Law, volume 38, page 377:

It has also been suggested that environmental crimes might include the proposed crime of ‘ecocide’ or ‘geocide’, with proponents of this view attempting to draw parallels between destructive acts towards the environment and those against the qualifying groups for genocide. […] [M]any who advocate for the creation of either ecocide or geocide principally argue that the best place to try such crimes is through an apparatus created in a separate and environment-oriented treaty.

2013, Alexandra R. Harrington, “The Crime of Aggression and Threats to the Future”, in Sébastien Jodoin, Marie-Claire Cordonier Segger, editors, Sustainable Development, International Criminal Justice, and Treaty Implementation, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, →ISBN, pages 161–162:

The destruction of the earth, its ecosystems, or some part thereof, due to human activity.


birthday effect

(statistics) A statistical phenomenon where an individual's likelihood of death appears to increase on or close to their birthday, variously attributed to alcohol consumption, psychological stress, increased suicide risk, and other factors.


double kill

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

(video games) The killing of two targets or enemies in a single hit, or with one magazine, or in quick succession.


santilmo

(folklore) A floating flame or fire ball, similar to a will o' the wisp, that stalk or chase people at night, believed to be the ignited blood of a person who met a tragic death.


you're a long time dead

Be merry, man, for a minute, for you'll be a long time dead!

1968, Sean O'Casey, The Sean O'Casey Reader, page 259:

When opportunity knocks, take it. You're a long time dead you know!

2011, Sophie Boswell, The Power of Feng Shui, →ISBN, page 103:

'You're a long time dead,' my mother used to shout at the neighbours when they complained about the noise, and for once I agree.

2015, Rebecca Whitney, The Liar's Chair, →ISBN:

A reminder that we are all mortal, as a justification for enjoying life while one can.


guolaosi

From Mandarin 過勞死／过劳死 (guòláosǐ), from Japanese 過労死 (karōshi). Doublet of gwarosa and karoshi.

zh-l

過勞死／过劳死 (guòláosǐ)

They say that Chinese workers in factories supplying Wal-Mart are dying from guolaosi—“overwork death”—from working upwards of fifteen hours a day, seven days a week, for months on end in a frenzy to quickly and cheaply fill demand ...

2005, Melissa Rossi, What Every American Should Know About Who's Really Running the World, →ISBN:

Asia estimated that by June 2006 the number of deaths attributed to guolaosi in China had reached six hundred thousand per year.

2007, Anne Elizabeth Moore, Unmarketable:

Her parents were told it was 'unknown death' and received a small sum in compensation. But the villagers said it was the new disease, guolaosi. Overwork death.

2011, Eric Clark, The Real Toy Story: Inside the Ruthless Battle for Britain's Youngest Consumers, →ISBN:

Although difficult to calculate, one prominent newspaper estimates that guolaosi claims the lives of 600 000 people in China each year.

2015, Steven McShane, Mara Olekalns, Alex Newman, Organisational Behaviour 5e; Emerging Knowledge, →ISBN:

Such a concept is also recognised in South Korea where it is referred to as gwarosa (과로사/過勞死) and in China, overwork-induced suicide is called guolaosi (过劳死).

2017 July 16, “Dying Through Overwork. Working Hours in Asia.”, in Bird & Bird:

The Japanese concept of karoshi (過労死) comes to mind when I think of what can happen when you aren't in tune with your body's needs. Karoshi, a Japanese word that literally translates as "overwork death," is known as sudden occupational mortality. In South Korea, it's called gwarosa (과로사) and in China, guolaosi (過勞死／过劳死).

2022 July 12, Dwayne J. Clark, “KAROSHI CULTURE: A WARNING TO WORKAHOLICS”, in Dwayne J. Clark:

九九六

9-to-9 workday and six-day workweek; 996


corpse-to-be

(humorous) A person or other living creature that is expected to die soon.


good night, sweet prince

From Shakespeare's Hamlet (act V scene ii), in which Horatio utters the line to his dying friend Hamlet.


gold star

From Gold + star from the star shape of the award and its colour, representing the highest of three levels: gold, silver, bronze.

a gold-star mother

(in compounds, US military) A relative of a U.S. soldier when the latter has been killed in action.


jiangshi

/d͡ʒiˌɑŋˈʃiː/

/d͡ʒiˌæŋˈʃiː/

Borrowed from Mandarin 殭屍／僵尸 (jiāngshī).

A reanimated corpse in Chinese legend, which moves around by hopping with its arms outstretched, and kills living creatures to absorb their life force.


Abraham's balsam

Pun on Abraham's balm (Vitex agnus-castus) or Abraham's bosom

(archaic, British slang) death by hanging.


alkaline hydrolysis

potassium hydroxide
potassium hydroxide#English

An alternative to cremation in which a dead body is dissolved in caustic soda solution (potassium hydroxide, KOH)


streeker

(UK, Scotland, dialect) One who lays out a dead body; a professional attendant of the dead


appointment in Samarra

en-noun

appointment in Samarra (plural appointments in Samarra)

Literary reference to an ancient Babylonian myth, transcribed by W. Somerset Maugham, in which Death is both the narrator and a central character.

Perhaps if each of us could truly accept his "appointment in Samarra," the activity of that skeleton in card thirteen would not seem so threatening.

1980, Sallie Nichols, Jung and Tarot: An Archetypal Journey, page 232:

John O'Hara kept his appointment in Samarra Saturday at the age of 65, and even though I am aware that the Black Hawks are romping toward a Stanley Cup triumph and the Cubs are opening at home tomorrow and the world's greatest golfers are concluding an epic struggle over Augusta National's picturesque acres, I'm going to devote this column to John O'Hara because I think I owe it to him.

2011, Bob Markus, I'll Play These: A Sports Writer's Life, page 178:


pass the river

en-verb

pass the river (third-person singular simple present passes the river, present participle passing the river, simple past and past participle passed the river)

passes the river (present singular third-person)
passing the river (participle present)
passed the river (participle past)
passed the river (past)

Allusion to the crossing of the river Styx, the boundary between life and Hades, in Classical Greek mythology.

To the beautiful memory of Kenneth Grahame, husband of Elspeth and father of Alastair, who passed the river on the 6th of July, 1932, leaving childhood and literature through him the more blest for all time.

1991, Anthony Hope, edited by Humphrey Carpenter and Mari Prichard, The Oxford Companion to Children's Literature, Oxford: Oxford University Press, pages 216–219:


cross the river

cross the river (third-person singular simple present crosses the river, present participle crossing the river, simple past and past participle crossed the river)

crosses the river (present singular third-person)
crossing the river (participle present)
crossed the river (participle past)
crossed the river (past)

He had come back over the frontier of death. nails, spears, and a cross. Today bombs, mines, torpedoes, and shells. The same death. But death has lost its sting since Jesus crossed the river.

2014, Horton Davies, Marie-Helene Davies, David Cain, How Far Down Dare I Drink?: Promises Greater Than Dreams, page 82:


death-struggle

"It will cure him if he be not dead. Swift, now! Swift! The man dies!" I glanced towards him; it was true enough, Leo was in his death-struggle.

1886 October – 1887 January, H[enry] Rider Haggard, She: A History of Adventure, London: Longmans, Green, and Co., published 1887, →OCLC:

There was a death-struggle, during which White Fang walked around, stiff-legged and observant.

1906 May–October, Jack London, White Fang, New York, N.Y.: The Macmillan Company; London: Macmillan & Co., published October 1906, →OCLC, part 3 (The Gods of the Wild), page 182:

The final throes of bodily effort before dying; agony; death throes.


close one's eyes for the last time

close one's eyes for the last time (third-person singular simple present closes one's eyes for the last time, present participle closing one's eyes for the last time, simple past and past participle closed one's eyes for the last time)

closes one's eyes for the last time (present singular third-person)
closing one's eyes for the last time (participle present)
closed one's eyes for the last time (participle past)
closed one's eyes for the last time (past)


Jedicide

OK, so we know that many of the force powers used by the Jedi of Old have been lost due to the Imperial policy of Jedicide *:o)
In the movies and books we are only exposed to a handful of the Jedi that survived and were able to make HoloVision headlines.

1994 April 14, Andrew R. Jackson, “SWRPG: House rules: New Jedi Powers...”, in rec.arts.sf.starwars (Usenet), message-ID <1994Apr14.011426.23046@dal1>:

I wonder how long before Luke was born did the Jedicide begin. I'm guessing about 30 years before ANH, because I believe Anakin was about 25 when that all happened, since Vader was 50 in ESB (according to my ESB trading cards).

1997 March 2, JEDI AL, “Re: Han didn't believe in the Force?”, in rec.arts.sf.starwars.misc (Usenet), message-ID <19970302233500.SAA22306@ladder02.news.aol.com>:

> Also, Obi-Wan tells Luke that Vader helped the Emporer^([sic]) hunt down and kill the Jedi Knights.
[…]
But we only have Obi-Wan's word about the Jedicide. And we know how trustworthy *that* is!

2000 November 28, SpammersDie, “Re: CD-Copy”, in alt.games.thief-dark-project (Usenet), message-ID <K1zA5.2855$7I4.160528@bgtnsc04-news.ops.worldnet.att.net>:

(rare, fandom slang, Star Wars) The killing of Jedi.


deathwise

Reading down both columns, the most hard-hit area, deathwise, was Sichuan and the most hard-hit area, birthwise, was Anhui province.

1996, Terry Lee Anderson, Peter Jensen Hill, The Privatization Process: A Worldwide Perspective, page 160:

I had nothing to fear, deathwise, from a stupid wolf. I threw myself at the fur bag, wrapping my left arm around his neck, and with my right hand clawed his eyes.

2011, K. Bennett, Pay Me In Flesh, page 258:


vitally challenged

imagine... 85 years old Cohen the Barbarian and his "gray horde"... death as DEATH, an antropomorphic^([sic]) personification, that is... meetings of the "vitally challenged (= the undead)"...

1997 June 12, Sascha LC Erni, “Tips-of-the-hat (was: Mythos - A shared world?)”, in alt.horror.cthulhu (Usenet), message-ID <Pine.LNX.3.95.970612144354.13110E-100000@goblin.studi.unizh.ch>:

I blame the new hard line on welfare for driving driving^([sic]) the vitally challenged onto the streets instead of leaving them in State run graveyards

1998 May 8, Dabe the Hobbit, “Re: somebody please take this necronomicon away”, in alt.necronomicon (Usenet), message-ID <3552F6A5.9A96933B@pls.bris.ac.uk>:

This is the party of "vote early, vote often," where even the "vitally challenged" (the PC term for "dead people") still have the right to vote […]

2006 November 26, wayne, “10 liberal lies #7”, in alt.x.y (Usenet), message-ID <13343-4569CC79-1997@storefull-3358.bay.webtv.net>:

(humorous, euphemistic) the dead; those who have died


body farm

A research facility where the decomposition of bodies can be studied.


lethean

From Latin Lēthē, from Ancient Greek Λήθη (Lḗthē).

Men said that the garden had been roofed over against the sun with great sheets of lead and copper, leaving no cranny through which the tiniest star could peer down. Some swore that the privacy of its masters during their visits was ensured by a lethean slumber which Dwerulas, through his magic art, was wont to lay at such times upon the whole vicinity.

1938 April, Clark Ashton Smith, “The Garden of Adompha”, in Weird Tales, volume 31:

Of or relating to death or forgetfulness.

léthéen

of or relating to death or forgetfulness


turn up one's toes

turn up one's toes (third-person singular simple present turns up one's toes, present participle turning up one's toes, simple past and past participle turned up one's toes)

turns up one's toes (present singular third-person)
turning up one's toes (participle present)
turned up one's toes (participle past)
turned up one's toes (past)

(Australia, colloquial, almost humorous) To die.


Texas tea

en-noun

Texas tea (countable and uncountable, plural Texas teas)

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

San Quentin’s execution logs indicate that, during six of the prison’s eleven lethal injections, the condemned may have been partly conscious; similar findings have led eight states to suspend use of the chemical mixture—sometimes called Texas Tea—employed in most of the death-penalty states, including California.

2007 July 23, Tad Friend, “Dean of Death Row”, in The New Yorker:

“[…] He was from Texas. Short disgusting little prick. Didn't even know what Texas Tea was. So I told him.” Jim pointed his finger toward Helen. “I said it's what you guys use to kill people now that you've stopped frying them faster than potato chips. Sodium thiopental, pancuronium bromide, potassium chloride. He didn't say a thing. Dickwad. Just got a little smile on his face.”

2013, Elizabeth Strout, The Burgess Boys, New York, NY: Random House, published 2014, →ISBN, page 60:

(slang, US) A mixture of drugs (pancuronium bromide, potassium chloride, and sodium thiopental) used to execute a person by lethal injection.


malicide

malicide (countable and uncountable, plural malicides)

In fact, by the eleventh century, a term was invented for killing non-Christians, since this was not to be considered homicide. It was malicide, Latin for the killing of a bad person.

2008, Mark Kurlansky, Nonviolence. The History of a Dangerous Idea. Foreword by His Holiness the Dalai Lama, page 33:

(historical) The killing of a heretic, especially in reference to Christianity's dogmatic witch hunts.


poena cullei

From Latin poena culleī (literally “punishment of the sack”).

der

A form of execution in Ancient Rome consisting of being sewn up in a sack, sometimes with live animals, and then being thrown into water.


deathmaking

(social sciences) The process of causing individuals to die, as by withdrawing health care, carrying out abortions, etc.


Z"L

Transliteration of Hebrew ז״ל (Z"L), acronym of זִכְרוֹנוֹ לִבְרָכָה (zikhronó livrakhá, literally “may his memory be a blessing”).

(Judaism) English rendering of a common Hebrew posthumous honorific.


debt of nature

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:

(euphemistic) Death, seen as an obligation that all living creatures must eventually pay.


ubasute

A supposed former custom of Japan, whereby an infirm or elderly relative was left in some desolate place to die.


go the way of all the earth

en-verb

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

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

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

Popularized by the King James Bible (e.g., Joshua 23:14, 1 Kings 2:2).


status zero

"She was unconscious, we thought we were going to be dealing with a status zero (death), but she managed to regain consciousness," Ms Shadbolt said.

2014 November 29, Sam Hurley, “Dramatic crash outside popular Bay cafe”, in Hawke's Bay Today:

They said I was status one. There's only one below that — status zero, which is dead.

2017 December 5, Timothy Brown, “Shot policeman loves his work”, in Otago Daily Times:

A status at the lowest point of a ranking system. In particular:


check-out time

Right now for You, Lord, I must make time, because soon it will be my check-out time.

2001, Lisa C. Williams, Self Discovery: Prose and Poems-A Journey from Pain to Purpose, →ISBN:

If it is their time can they die with dignity and should they have the choice to know about and utilize the ancient method of self-euthanasia used by the lamas throughout time? What is this ancient method and can it be misused? How do we know if what we are facing is our check-out time or just a challenge?

2009, Jasmuheen, Divine Radiance - on the Road with the Masters of Magic, →ISBN, page 294:

Several water smudges and an obvious attempt to wipe them away dotted across the paper. Also, I never (sorry about that, I got a little weepy— fuck it!) planned to carry this affliction to term. My check-out time is another thing that's going to be my call. Dying an inch at a time is not my style.

2012, Jim Tuggle, Beyond the Pale, →ISBN:


be gathered to one's fathers

be<is,being,was,been> gathered to one's fathers

be gathered to one's fathers (third-person singular simple present is gathered to one's fathers, present participle being gathered to one's fathers, simple past was gathered to one's fathers, past participle been gathered to one's fathers)

is gathered to one's fathers (present singular third-person)
being gathered to one's fathers (participle present)
was gathered to one's fathers (past)
been gathered to one's fathers (participle past)

/biː ˈɡæðəd tuː wʌnz ˈfɑːðəz/

/bi ˈɡæðɚd tə wʌnz ˈfɑðɚz/

From various passages in the Bible, including Judges 2:10, and 1 Maccabees 2:69 in the Apocrypha (see the quotations), from
From Biblical Hebrew נֶאֱסַף אֶל־אֲבוֹתָיו (neʾĕsap ʾel-ʾăḇôṯâw) and Koine Greek προσετέθη πρὸς τοὺς πατέρας αὐτοῦ (prosetéthē pròs toùs patéras autoû, Apocrypha).

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נֶאֱסַף אֶל-אֲבוֹתָיו

neʾĕsap ʾel-ʾăḇôṯâw

προσετέθη πρὸς τοὺς πατέρας αὐτοῦ

And alſo all that generacion was gathered vnto their fathers, and an other generacion aroſe after them, which nether knewe the Lord, nor yet the workes, which he had done for Iſraél.

[1560, [William Whittingham et al., transl.], The Bible and Holy Scriptures Conteyned in the Olde and Newe Testament. […] (the Geneva Bible), Geneva: […] Rouland Hall, →OCLC, Ivdges II:10, folio 109, recto:

So he bleſſed them, and was gathered to his fathers.

1611, The Holy Bible, […] (King James Version), London: […] Robert Barker, […], →OCLC, 1 Maccabees 2:69, column 1:

How many prayers, offered up by ſerious and regenerated believers for their ungodly children, have been anſwered years after the humble petitioners have been gathered to their fathers!

1795 January, “Repentance, Conversion, and Dying Experience of a Poor Prostitute”, in The Evangelical Magazine, London: […] T. Chapman, […], →OCLC, page 8:

Besides the probate, large fees are demanded for burying him in the chancel; his virtues are handed down to posterity on taxed marble; and he is then gathered to his fathers,—to be taxed no more.

1820 January, [Sydney Smith], “Art. III. Statistical Annals of the United States of America. By Adam Seybert. 4to. Philadelphia, 1818. [book review]”, in The Edinburgh Review, or Critical Journal, volume XXXIII, number LXV, Edinburgh: Printed by David Willison, for Archibald Constable and Company; London: Longman, Hurst, Rees, Orme and Brown, →OCLC, page 78:

We have seen how William the Conqueror has been gathered to his fathers. Usual pageantries ensued: loud praises bestowed upon the departed monarch by those who enjoyed his bounty or profited by his patronage.

1864, Francis Palgrave, “The Events Consequent upon the Accession of Rufus in England, and of Robert in Normandy”, in [Francis Turner Palgrave], editor, The History of Normandy and of England, volumes IV (William Rufus—Accession of Henry Beauclerc), London: Macmillan & Co., […], →OCLC, § 1, page 1:

In the course of years this worthy couple were gathered to their fathers and headlines on old tombs in the Means cemetery indicate that they found a resting place there many years ago.

1909, Edward H. Chadwick, “James Robert Means”, in Chadwick’s History of Shelby County, Indiana, Indianapolis, Ind.: B. F. Bowen & Company, →OCLC, page 915:

I am well over sixty and must expect to be gathered to my fathers sooner rather than later. Who will then be left to carry on the family traditions in a worthy manner?

2004, chapter 24, in Vladimir Kean, transl., Beyond the Golden Lotus: Chin P’ing Mei, London, New York, N.Y.: Kegan Paul, →ISBN, page 303:

[T]he offender is to be "cut off" (either the offender's line of descendants will cease, or the offender is barred from "being gathered to his fathers" in the afterlife).

2005, Victor P. Hamilton, “A Holiness Manifesto: Leviticus 17–27”, in Handbook on the Pentateuch, 2nd (ebook) edition, Grand Rapids, Mich.: Baker Academic, Baker Publishing Group, published 29 April 2015, →ISBN, part 3 (Leviticus):

(biblical and literary, dated) To be buried together with one's forebears; hence, to die.

נֶאֱסָף אֶל אֲבוֹתָיו

to be buried together with one's forebears — see also die

отпра́виться к праотца́м (otprávitʹsja k praotcám, literally “to depart to one’s forefathers”)


active euthanasia

A form of euthanasia wherein death is intentionally brought about, usually by medical intervention to end the patient's suffering.


take someone to the grave

en-verb

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

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

Two weeks later, cancer took him to the grave.

(idiomatic) To kill someone; to cause someone's death.


hempen widow

(obsolete) The widow of a man who was executed by hanging.


cop one's whack

cop one's whack (third-person singular simple present cops one's whack, present participle copping one's whack, simple past and past participle copped one's whack)

cops one's whack (present singular third-person)
copping one's whack (participle present)
copped one's whack (participle past)
copped one's whack (past)

...or the time the phone rang in the middle of the night and they knew before they answered that Auntie Jeanie had copped her whack.

2007, Christopher Brookmyre, Attack of the Unsinkable Rubber Ducks, →ISBN, page 29:

See if there's anybody deserves to cop their whack then it's him, surely, it's him and all the rest of they lying bastards, because they knew, they knew long before anybody else did.

Pick a day, pick a week, and if the big man cops his whack, you're in.

2012, Lee Battersby, The Corpse-Rat King, →ISBN:


fall asleep in the Lord

fall asleep in the Lord (third-person singular simple present falls asleep in the Lord, present participle falling asleep in the Lord, simple past fell asleep in the Lord, past participle fallen asleep in the Lord)

falls asleep in the Lord (present singular third-person)
falling asleep in the Lord (participle present)
fell asleep in the Lord (past)
fallen asleep in the Lord (participle past)

(chiefly Eastern Orthodoxy, poetic, euphemistic) To die.


sleep with one's fathers

sleep with one's fathers (third-person singular simple present sleeps with one's fathers, present participle sleeping with one's fathers, simple past and past participle slept with one's fathers)

sleeps with one's fathers (present singular third-person)
sleeping with one's fathers (participle present)
slept with one's fathers (participle past)
slept with one's fathers (past)

Calque of Biblical Hebrew וַיִּשְׁכַּב עִם־אֲבֹתָיו (wayyiškaḇ ʿim-ʾăḇōṯâw, literally “he slept with his fathers”) (found, for example, in the Bible at 1 Kings 2:10); compare be gathered to one's fathers.

calque

וַיִּשְׁכַּב עִם־אֲבֹתָיו

(biblical and literary, dated or obsolete) To be buried together with one's forebears; hence, to die; also, to be dead.


long home

From Middle English lang ham, lang hame, long hom, longue home.

to go to one's long home

[…] because man goeth to his long home, and the mourners goe about the streets:

1611, The Holy Bible, […] (King James Version), London: […] Robert Barker, […], →OCLC, Ecclesiastes 12:5:

“Cut me a junk o’ that,” says he, “for I haven’t no knife and hardly strength enough, so be as I had. Ah, Jim, Jim, I reckon I’ve missed stays! Cut me a quid, as’ll likely be the last, lad, for I’m for my long home, and no mistake.”

1881–1882, Robert Louis Stevenson, “Israel Hands”, in Treasure Island, London; Paris: Cassell & Company, published 14 November 1883, →OCLC, part V (My Sea Adventure), page 210:


gigadeath

They'll have no reason to hit the datasphere now. There will be no gigadeaths.

2008, Ken MacLeod, Fractions: The First Half of The Fall Revolution, page 285:


extinction level event

en-noun

extinction level event (plural extinction level events)

(chiefly science fiction) Synonym of mass extinction.


mortuary science

Holonym: thanatology

The study of dead bodies through mortuary work; the scientific aspects of deathcare; broadly, all of the education and training for a funeral director.


Lazarus sign

After Lazarus in the Bible, who was resurrected from the dead.

(medicine) A reflex movement in brain-dead or brainstem failure patients, which causes them to briefly raise their arms and drop them crossed on their chests.


put to the torch

en-verb

put to the torch (third-person singular simple present puts to the torch, present participle putting to the torch, simple past and past participle put to the torch)

puts to the torch (present singular third-person)
putting to the torch (participle present)
put to the torch (participle past)
put to the torch (past)


sleep of the just

From the idea that people who act justly have no worries and so sleep well, while unjust people are concerned about the consequences of their actions and so sleep poorly.

Towards the close of the day (the 8th) the holy father [Pope Leo XII], who had never lost his recollection, fell into a profound lethargy, from which he did not recover till at nine in the morning of the 10th [of February, 1829], to fall into the sleep of the just.

1829 April 18, “Death of Pope Leo XII”, in H[ezekiah] Niles & son, editors, Niles’ Weekly Register, volume XII, number 8 (Third Series; volume XXXVI, issue 918 overall), Baltimore, Md.: H[ezekiah] Niles & Son […], →OCLC, page 121, column 2:

At length he [Jean-Pierre-François Guillot-Duhamel] slept the sleep of the just, on the 19th February 1816, aged somewhat less than 86 years old.

1830 October–December, [Georges] Cuvier, “Biographical Memoir of M. Duhamel”, in Robert Jameson, editor, The Edinburgh New Philosophical Journal, Exhibiting a View of the Progressive Discoveries and Improvements in the Sciences and the Arts, volume XIX, Edinburgh: […] Adam Black, […]; London: Longman, Rees, Orme, Brown, & Green, →OCLC, page 14:

He [Albert Vernon Randall] was called to his final reward in January, 1883, after a long and useful life, and with his faithful wife, Sarah (Pettit) Randall, who was born May 9, 1809, in Loudoun County, Virginia, now sleeps the sleep of the just in the beautiful cemetery at Shebyville.

1909, Edward H. Chadwick, “Albert Vernon Randall”, in Chadwick’s History of Shelby County, Indiana, Indianapolis, Ind.: B. F. Bowen & Company, →OCLC, page 484:

(euphemistic, dated) A peaceful death or burial.


misthanasia

A neologism coined by Brazilian bioethicists, from mis- (“badly, wrongly”) + -thanasia (as in euthanasia, dysthanasia), from Ancient Greek θάνατος (thánatos, “death”).

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Orthotanasia refers to the art of promoting a humane and correct death, not subjecting patients to misthanasia or dysthanasia and not abbreviating death either, that is, subjecting them to euthanasia.

2009 September/October, Chaiane Amorim Biondo, Maria Júlia Paes da Silva, Lígia Maria Dal Secco, “Dysthanasia, Euthanasia, Orthotanasia: The Perceptions of Nurses Working in Intensive Care Units and Care Implications”, in Rev Latino-am Enfermagem, volume 17, number 5:

In these scenarios a debate on the difficult task of maintaining a balance between disthanasia, (therapeutic obstinacy), misthanasia (patient abandonment) and medical futility was seen (9-12)

2010, José Ramírez Rivera, Carlos Cánova Díaz, Robert Hunter Mellado, “Knowledge and implementation of the DNR in internal medicine teaching programs”, in Puerto Rico health sciences, volume 29, number 2:

This paper aims to reflect on human dignity and misthanasia in the public health system in Brazil.

2017 October, Anna Silvia Setti Da Rocha, “Human Dignity, Misthanasia, Public Health and Bioethics in Brazil”, in Revista Iberoamericana de Bioética, →ISSN:

The premature death of a vulnerable human due to a failure to provide appropriate help in the context of social injustice.


till death us do part

till death do us part
till death do us part#English

Alternative form of till death do us part.


go gentle into that good night

en-verb

go<goes,,went,gone> gentle into that good night

go gentle into that good night (third-person singular simple present goes gentle into that good night, present participle going gentle into that good night, simple past went gentle into that good night, past participle gone gentle into that good night)

goes gentle into that good night (present singular third-person)
going gentle into that good night (participle present)
went gentle into that good night (past)
gone gentle into that good night (participle past)

From the poem Do not go gentle into that good night (1947) by Welsh poet Dylan Thomas.


drive a nail in someone's coffin

drive<,,drove,driven> a nail in someone's coffin

drive a nail in someone's coffin (third-person singular simple present drives a nail in someone's coffin, present participle driving a nail in someone's coffin, simple past drove a nail in someone's coffin, past participle driven a nail in someone's coffin)

drives a nail in someone's coffin (present singular third-person)
driving a nail in someone's coffin (participle present)
drove a nail in someone's coffin (past)
driven a nail in someone's coffin (participle past)
drive a nail into someone's coffin (alternative)

To do something tending to hasten someone's death or ruin.


posthumous name

en-noun

posthumous name (plural posthumous names)

The posthumous names of early Chinese rulers were often variations of a few words like "the martial one" (武), "the literary one" (文), and "the filial one" (孝), but by the Tang they had become so long that people began using rulers' temple names or era names instead.

(historical) A respectful alias used in Chinese or sometimes more broadly East Asian contexts to refer to a dead person, particularly royalty.

謚號 /谥号

respectful name used for a dead person in Chinese or East Asian contexts


happy birthday in heaven

Happy birthday in heaven, Joe. Today should be your tenth birthday.

Said or written to a deceased person on their birthday in order to convey the good wishes of the speaker or writer.


godkiller

godkillers (plural)
Godkiller (alternative)

For quotations using this term, see Citations:Godkiller.

A person, weapon, etc., who or which kills a god.


megacorpse

One million corpses, as a unit of measure in reference to nuclear warfare.


llamacide

From llama + -cide, by analogy with homicide (a rhyming word in many dialects).

Tpr. Ronald Clark solved a "llamacide" case by identifying two high school students who, while drunk, shot a llama to death.

1999, The Communicator, Volumes 36-37, The Police:

would it be considered llamacide?

2004 May 10, Officer Farva, “If I murdered a llama....”, in rec.sport.pro-wrestling (Usenet), message-ID <20040510174324.08439.00001110@mb-m10.aol.com>:

2015, Gravity Falls, episode "The Stanchurian Candidate"
Crimes include shoplifting, teaching bears to drive, a new crime he invented called "burglebezzlement", first-degree llamacide...


premurder

We fail to see, and the State has not indicated, how the premurder statements to one who was not a co-conspirator can be termed in furtherance of the conspiracy.

1981, Illinois Appellate Reports: Official Reports of the Illinois Appellate Court, page 1008:

And in 1997, a grand jury that was grinding away at the case learned of an interesting premurder conversation between Neulander and Myron "Pep" Levin.

2006, Sam Stall, Suburban Legends: True Tales of Murder, Mayhem, and Minivans, Quirk Books, →ISBN, page 67:

Performing a premurder ritual that includes wine, dancing, and the music of Dusty Springfield's hit song “The Look of Love,” Rodriguez asks Frannie, “You ever been in love? All women want love, right?”

2012, Karen A. Ritzenhoff, Karen Randell, Screening the Dark Side of Love: From Euro-Horror to American Cinema, Palgrave Macmillan, →ISBN, page 56:


necriscence

(biology) serotiny as a result of the death of a plant


with one's last breath

(literary) At the point when one about to die.


dullahan

dullahans (plural)
Dullahan (alternative)
dullaghan (alternative)
Dullaghan (alternative)

From Irish dulachán, from dubh (“black”) + another word (compare lucharachán (“elf, dwarf”)), possibly originally a term for a dark or sullen person (compare the surname Dullahan) and only subsequently applied to the spirit.

The dullahans always came in a mist. But Devin wasn't afraid of dullahans. If he saw one, he would club it over the head. But then Devin remembered that dullahans didn't have heads. He grasped his stick a little tighter in his hand, […]

1990, Elona Malterre, The Last Wolf of Ireland, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, →ISBN, page 3:

“A dullahan,” both Phelan and Coriel whispered. Coriel looked her square in the eye, “You did remember the gold, right?” ML blushed, “No, I didn't. I was so scared I just started running.” “Then how did you escape?” “My pocket tore on a bush. […] “You're lucky you're not dead anyway. The dullahan could have stopped or spoken your name, or both.”

2008, Jessica Borchardt, A Fairy Yarn, →ISBN, page 53:

There is no way to bar the road against a dullahan. All locks and gates open on their own when it approaches. Dullahans do not appreciate being watched while on their errands, throwing a basin of blood on those who dare to do so […]

2014, Tony Locke, Mayo Folk Tales, The History Press, →ISBN:

But the values of a fairy manifested into physical form in this city—a dullahan.” Celty Sturluson was not a human being. Celty was a type of fairy known as a dullahan that appeared to those close to death, signaling their impending demise.

2015, Ryohgo Narita, Durarara, volume 1, Yen Press LLC, →ISBN:

Because she is a dullahan, her head is not connected to her body—it's held in place by her gear.

2017, Kugane Maruyama, Satoshi Oshio, Overlord, volume 4, Yen Press LLC, →ISBN:

(fantasy, Irish mythology) A black-clad (usually male) horserider in Irish folklore which carries its severed head like a lantern and may be repelled by gold; when it stops riding (or calls out someone's name), someone will die. (Also called the Gan Ceann, Irish for "[one] without a head".)


die like flies

en-verb

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

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

They must have been dying like flies here.

1899 February, Joseph Conrad, “The Heart of Darkness”, in Blackwood’s Edinburgh Magazine, volume CLXV, number M, New York, N.Y.: The Leonard Scott Publishing Company, […], →OCLC, part I, page 196:


farm upstate

What do parents tell their kids when they have to put their pet dog down? “We had to send li'l Fido to a farm upstate, honey....” Maybe that's where I'm going. The farm upstate. “We had to send li'l Spencer to the farm upstate, honey.

2014, Clay McLeod Chapman, Academic Assassins:

The convenience of online shopping is "irresistible," John Oliver said on Sunday's Last Week Tonight. "It's frankly no wonder that e-commerce is gradually chipping away at brick-and-mortar retail sales, and it can seem like the retail jobs are shifting, too," with warehouse jobs apparently "absorbing America's lost retail employees." And that "initially sounds kind of nice," Oliver said. "It's like hearing that there's actually a farm upstate where Borders, Circuit City, and Tower Records employees can run around and be free."

2019 July 1, “John Oliver dispels your happy, convenient illusions about shopping on Amazon”, in The Week, Johnsplaining:

The iconic palm trees that line Park Avenue in downtown San Jose are pulling up roots and moving off the street. / No, they're not going to a farm upstate or retiring to a sunny beach somewhere. They're not heading off to the wood chipper, either — they're going around the corner to a new home on Almaden Boulevard.

2019 November 22, Rosellen "Rosie" Downey, Silicon Valley Business Journal:

Turns out Betsy Ross is the biggest lie your kindergarten teacher ever told you (except that Bubbles the class gerbil was moving to a farm upstate).

2020 June 14, Josh Axelrod, Saeed Ahmed, “It's Flag Day. Here are some fun facts about the American flag you may not have known”, in CNN:

(US, euphemistic) The place an animal (or by extension, person, concept, etc) notionally goes when they are dead; used as a euphemism for a state of literal or figurative death or oblivion.


celestial transfer

Said Naomi, “Another doctor in a starched white lab coat told me I was going to be taking a six-foot dirt nap. That is, in about three years, I was going to make the old celestial transfer.”

2005, Lanford Beard, editor, E! True Hollywood Story: The Real Stories Behind the Glitter, New York, NY: Chamberlain Bros., →ISBN, page 323:


cross the Styx

cross the Styx (third-person singular simple present crosses the Styx, present participle crossing the Styx, simple past and past participle crossed the Styx)

crosses the Styx (present singular third-person)
crossing the Styx (participle present)
crossed the Styx (participle past)
crossed the Styx (past)

From Greek mythology, after Styx, a river that forms the boundary between Earth and the Underworld, over which the ferryman Charon transports the souls of the newly dead. See Styx on Wikipedia.Wikipedia

The following day Nigel apologized for what he described as an unhappy domestic interlude. “Marietta tells me that you are going to come over every day until . . . I cross the Styx.” I heard him chuckle. “Jolly nice of you, old boy.”

2009, Peter Wright, Triumphs and Tragedies: Twenty-five Aspects of the Life of a Liverpool Sailor, Bloomington, IN: iUniverse, →ISBN, page 172:

We know what’s sprouting, but Mantel’s trilogy lets us imagine that it might all have been different. Did Anne Boleyn’s neck have to meet the sword of an executioner brought from Calais to do her in? Did Thomas Cromwell have to cross the Styx himself four years later?

2020 March 28, Catherine Holmes, “Review: Mantel’s trilogy finale gives us the end of Cromwell’s action-packed life”, in The Post and Courier:

(intransitive, literary or humorous) To die.


thanatophilia

What has obsessed the Irishman with thanatophilia — this love of death, decadence and decay?

1950, Oliver St. John Gogarty, Rolling Down the Lea, page 142:


stop someone's clock

stop someone's clock (third-person singular simple present stops someone's clock, present participle stopping someone's clock, simple past and past participle stopped someone's clock)

stops someone's clock (present singular third-person)
stopping someone's clock (participle present)
stopped someone's clock (participle past)
stopped someone's clock (past)

"You wouldn't last thirty minutes if I wasn't behind you," Dandy Bob snapped. "Somebody would stop your clock, only they're afraid of me."

2004, Bennett Foster, Gila City, page 147:

Navarro aimed his cocked Colt at Homer Winters's fear-etched face. “Come and pick him up before I stop his clock.”

I cannot let it stop my clock, I'm far from the end of my road.


death-dealing

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

The country was at that time ruled by a death-dealing tyrant.

The aliens were armed with an array of death-dealing weapons.

Causing or inflicting death, or capable of doing so; lethal.


suicide cult

A cult in which the members willingly commit group suicide.


rescue circle

"Wickland has finally made out his case, but I do say that our experiences at rescue circles bear out the general idea, and that he has admittedly cured many cases which others have found intractable."

1925 July – 1926 May, A[rthur] Conan Doyle, “(please specify the chapter number)”, in The Land of Mist (eBook no. 0601351h.html), Australia: Project Gutenberg Australia, published April 2019:

(parapsychology) A group of spiritualists that hold sittings in order to help confused spirits of the dead to accept the fact that they are dead.


last full measure

en-noun

last full measure (plural last full measures)

Near-synonym: martyrdom

Today we mourn these heroes who gave the last full measure in support of freedom.

It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us—that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion—that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain—that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom—and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.

1863 November 19, Abraham Lincoln, Dedicatory Remarks (Gettysburg Address)^(https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Gettysburg_Address_(Bliss_copy)), near Soldiers' National Cemetery, →LCCN, Bliss copy, pages 2-3:

(idiomatic) A person's life, when lost through death in service to a nation or cause, particularly as a member of a military force in war or a semi-militarized organization such as a police force or civil defense corps, e.g. fire departments. May also be applied to some dangerous government and civil occupations such as espionage.


deathling

The interest of his realm had need That death should get a numerous breed; Young deathlings, who by practice made Proficient in their father's trade

1860, Jonathan Swift, The Works of Jonathan Swift, page 442:

Meanwhile most of the deathling troop had rustled past them and fallen on the Taians.

1980, Poul Anderson, Conan the Rebel, page 167:

Deathlings or even wraiths weren't the deadliest weapons.

2009, T. Salenger, The First Rider, page 111:

A supernatural being associated with death, especially a child of death.


manner of death

manner of death (plural manners of death)

A legal (as opposed to pathological or biological) determination by a coroner, medical examiner, police, or similar as to the factors leading to a person's death.


mechanism of death

mechanism of death (plural mechanisms of death)

The proximate cause of a person's death relating to the biological processes (rather than external cause) that lead to decease.


asinicide

From Latin asinus (“donkey, ass; idiot”) + -icide. In Laura Cereta (1997; see quotation), via nonce Latin asinicīda.

suffix

The fact that there are two racing associations in the Mississippi Valley, the old Western Turf Congress and the new Western Jockey Club—both weaker and more offensive in smell than dish and ditch-water combined—are struggling for ascendency with a prospect of mutual asinicide, helps along the Bush inspiration, and it will be very easy to frighten horsemen from Charleston, and equally easy, when the scare had become effective, to remove the ban by a wave of the Bush digitals, altogether in the same manner as when the attempt was made to interfere with Bennings and Brother-in-Law Howland.

1901 December 9, “Charleston Racing Will Have the Call. Not the Slightest Danger that the New Orleans Winter Gambling Game Will Attempt Any Ex Parte Outlawry. Charleston Programme for Three Days.”, in The Brooklyn Citizen, volume XXX, number 160, Brooklyn, N.Y., →OCLC, page 4:

Last night a mule belonging to Maria Long, a negress, in the northern part of town, went wild from some cause. The mule kicked the stable all to pieces, jumped out of the wreck, ran to Cross creek, jumped in and drowned himself. Was it a case of asinicide?

1906 December 21, “Fayetteville Mule, Tired of Life, Ends All in Creek”, in The Daily Industrial News, volume II, number 64, Greensboro, N.C., page 3, column 2:

For this reason this rustic little destroyer of humanity deserves to suffer not only the censure of the Porcian and Semprorian laws, but also the axes of the tribunes’ prison as well, since he would have organized and presented everything aptly and wittily enough had he, being ill-advised in his asinicide,³⁴ left those whips and burning wounds out of the revision of his story.

1997, Laura Cereta, “Dialogue on the Death of an Ass”, in Diana Robin, transl., Laura Cereta: Collected Letters of a Renaissance Feminist (The Other Voice in Early Modern Europe), Chicago, Ill.; London: The University of Chicago Press, →ISBN, page 197:

The killing (including by self) of an ass or donkey.


anthumously

And the social problem will not worry us, so long as millionaires are creators rather than wasters; so long as they turn into philanthropists anthumously; so long as the son of a blacksmith may become wealthy, and President;

1957, Albert Guérard, Fossils and Presences, Stanford University Press, page 23:

[…]of whom are B. P. Hasdeu, Mihai Eminescu, Ion Luca Caragiale – with a thorough and telling pleading on the decisive impact of Eminescu’s poetry (anthumously and posthumously published) with its Romantic-type inherent sublimity.

1988, Romanian Review, page 77, column 2:

I will thus henceforth call “poetic collection” a collection of poems, in verse or in prose, published or at least created by one, or exceptionally more than one, poet, in principle before his death; a collection published posthumously but created anthumously, such as Vigny’s Destinées, strictly corresponds to this definition;

2005, “Fantasy Landscape”, in Dorrit Cohn, transl., Essays in Aesthetics (Stages; volume 20), translation of original by Gérard Genette, →ISBN, page 126:


pay the ultimate price

en-verb

pay the ultimate price (third-person singular simple present pays the ultimate price, present participle paying the ultimate price, simple past and past participle paid the ultimate price)

pays the ultimate price (present singular third-person)
paying the ultimate price (participle present)
paid the ultimate price (participle past)
paid the ultimate price (past)

On the East and West Coast Main Lines in the 1950s/60s, for example, we saw the extinction of intermediate stations in order to create the same sort of accelerations that IRP is now promising. Back then, the priority was faster main line services, with wayside/intermediate stations paying the ultimate price.

2022 January 12, Nigel Harris, “Comment: Unhappy start to 2022”, in RAIL, number 948, page 3:

I speak today now about my citizens- citizens of Ukraine- who are defending- by paying the ultimate price- defending freedom. I'm very happy what I've seen here now, and heard here now, I'm very glad to sense this mood- the uniting, unified mood. I'm happy that we have unified today, all of you, all the countries of the European Union but I did not know that this is the price they will have to pay.

2022 March 1, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, 0:00 from the start, in Zelensky receives standing ovation after speech to European Parliament, CNN:

To die as a result of a fatal choice or decision, or because of deep commitments.


transfeminicide

en-noun

transfeminicide (countable and uncountable, plural transfeminicides)

The great number of transfeminicides (assassinations of transgender people) and assassinations of homosexual people are truly alarming.

2019, Ángel F. Méndez Montoya, “¡Sin maricones no hay revoluciones! (Without Queering, There's No Revolutioneering!): Mexico's Queer Subversions of Public Space and the Decolonization of Marriage Heteronormativity”, in Raimundo Barreto, Roberto Sirvent, editors, Decolonial Christianities: Latinx and Latin American Perspectives, page 213:

Saying cuir in Mexico today is to name thousands of murdered and disappeared victims of feminicides and transfeminicides.

2019, Simone Pereira de Sá, “Cartographies of Brazlian popular and 'peripheral' music on YouTube”, in Fernando Resende, Mehita Iqani, editors, Media and the Global South: Narrative Territorialities, Cross-Cultural Current, unnumbered page:

In January 2021, Revista étnica reported that "2020 closed with a total of 60 direct and indirect femicides, of which 17 are considered intimate killings, 6 transfeminicides, and 26 cases that are being investigated or remain without information. […]

2021, Rocío Zambrana, Colonial Debts: The Case of Puerto Rico, unnumbered page:


travesticide

travesticides (plural)
transvesticide (alternative)

From Spanish travesti (“trans woman, cross-dresser”) + -cide.

suffix

In 2018 the figure of "travesticide" (term developed by Radi and Sardá-Chandiramani 2016) was applied for the first time in Argentina during the trial for the murder of travesti activist Diana Sacayán.

2020, Moira Fradinger, Blas Radi, Moira Pérez, “Argentina, Chile, And Uruguay”, in Chuck Stewart, editor, Gender and Identity Around the World, page 197:

Speaking of violence starting from femicides and travesticides positions them as its culminating point, but it also poses a challenge: to not limit ourselves to its necropolitical accounting, the tallying of femicides and victims.

2020, Verónica Gago, Feminist International: How to Change Everything, page 56:

In criminal law, the case of the murder of the travestite and human rights activist Dana Sacayán, has been framed by the prosecution as one of a “travesticide”, that is, a hate crime against a travestite.

2021, Laura Saldivia Menajovsky, “Argentina, Trans Persons and the Development of a Human Rights Discourse”, in Isabel Cristina Jaramillo Vélez, Laura Carlson, editors, Trans Rights and Wrongs: A Comparative Study of Legal Reform Concerning Trans Persons, page 360:

(Latin America) The killing of a travesti because of her gender, especially when motivated by transmisogyny.


transvesticide

In recent years, contemporary protest movements such as NiUnaMenos (NotOne[Woman]Less) have drawn attention to the country's rising number of femicides, a category that in Argentina includes transvesticides and transfemicides.

2019, C. J. W.-L. Wee, “Contemporary theatre, the contemporary, and historicity”, in Helena Grehan, Peter Eckersall, editors, The Routledge Companion to Theatre and Politics, unnumbered page:

At the same time, it enables higher levels of sexist violence in society, with its wake of femicides, transvesticides, transfemicides and other hate crimes.

2020, Celeste Fierro, Feminism in Debate, Reform or Revolution?, unnumbered page:

Later, the tragedy surrounding transvesticide was added to the campaign. Femicide and transvesticide show, in the most brutal way, the power relations of the current patriarchy.

2020, Ana Isabel González Montes, “Argentinean Feminist Movements: Debates from praxis”, in Diana Mulinari, Khayaat Fakier, Nora Räthzel, editors, Marxist-Feminist Theories and Struggles Today: Essential Writings on Intersectionality, Postcolonialism and Ecofeminism, page 287:

(Latin America) Alternative form of travesticide.


Armenian genocide

the Armenian genocide (canonical)
Armenian Genocide (alternative)

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

(historical) The systematic mass murder of around one million ethnic Armenians in the Ottoman Empire during World War I (1915–1917).

Meds Yeghern

used especially by Armenians when speaking English


deathism

Religions may be the purest offspring of deathism. Most religions promise rewards in heaven or punishments in hell […]

1999, Bart Kosko, The Fuzzy Future: From Society and Science to Heaven in a Chip, page 247:

There is no joy of any kind in what I describe as the deathism paradigm they follow, other than whatever feelings of effectiveness may be derived from killing the infidel and in fulfilling the personal death wish of religious martyrdom.

2010, Robert J. Pellegrini, Identities for Life and Death, page 248:

The belief that death is natural, inevitable, or desirable.


selficide

en-noun

selficide (countable and uncountable, plural selficides)

Drowning, being hit by a vehicle or suffering a fall ^([sic]) the most common causes of ‘selficide’.

2018 September 28, Jasper Hamill, “Scientists call for ‘no selfie’ zones to stop narcissists dying in ‘selficides’”, in Metro:

A recent study documented 259 deaths worldwide caused by people taking selfies – dubbed “selficides” by the researchers – between October 2011 and November 2017.

2018 November 3, Erin McCormick, Michael Safi, “'Is our life just worth a photo?': the tragic death of a couple in Yosemite”, in The Guardian:

Selficides were already in the news last weekend, when it was revealed that an Indian couple who fell to their death at Yosemite National Park had alcohol in their system.

2019 January 23, Paula Froelich, “Selficide: The Dangerous New Addiction”, in Newsweek:

This situation is becoming increasingly common, even coining the new term selficide where people die in pursuit of extreme selfies, and is not something any crisis playbook of the past would anticipate

2020, Ronald D. Smith, Strategic Planning for Public Relations, page 198:

(see title)

2020, Tasawar Hannan, “Facebook 'Selficide': Are They Modern-Day Tragic Attempts of Our Symbolic Capital?”, in European Journal of Sociology, volume 3, number 1:

According to an article published in Economic times named 'Global addiction: Selfie's facts and moments from around the world.' (economictimes) States that millennia‟s age 18-34, 82% of them are selfie takers (2018 fact), 259 selficide ie deaths caused while taking Selfie‟s (Bureau, 2019) reported by All India institute of medical sciences in the year 2011-2017, half of which were reported from India followed by Russia, United States and Pakistan.

2021 June, C. P. Rashmi, Ritu S. Sood, “Selfie Creating Dual Personalities: A Study of Selfie, Narcissism and Social Media”, in Journal of Content, Community & Communication, volume 13:

(informal) Accidental death that occurs while trying to take a selfie in a dangerous environment.


last roundup

last roundups (plural)
final roundup (alternative)

An allusion to herding of cattle into a group.

So Duke is 66. But don't kid yourself that he's headed for the last roundup—even though it may have looked that way a while back when he surrendered a lung to cancer.

1973 December 30, Guy Flatley, “Cowboy or Cop, Wayne Never Wanes”, in New York Times, retrieved 2021-11-01:

[H]e swears that Jelf is going to beat him to the last roundup in the sky.

1977, Bill Reed, Dogod, Thomas Nelson (Australia) (reprinted 2015 by Reed Independent)

[N]ot everyone who runs with the bulls is young, male, drunk and stupid. […] It also is a way for people of a certain age to do something extraordinary before their last roundup.

2006 July 8, “Bullish on life”, in Los Angeles Times, retrieved 2021-11-01:

(chiefly US, idiomatic, euphemistic) Death.


die in harness

en-verb

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

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

By metaphor from the literal sense referring to working horses dying while on the job, wearing their harness.

As he himself [Sir Nigel Gresley] would doubtless have wished, he died in harness; only a few weeks previously he had been present at the first public view of his latest design, the Bantam Cock, which, like most of his products, bore all over it the impress of his personality.

1941 June, Cecil J. Allen, “British Locomotive Practive and Performance”, in Railway Magazine, page 260:

Of a person, to pass away before retirement.


death play

(stock market) The buying of company stock based on the belief that an executive in the company will soon die, with the expectation that the stock will rise in price because of it.


Headless Horseman

en-noun

Headless Horseman (plural Headless Horsemen)

Headless Horsemen (plural)
headless horseman (alternative)

They had dozens of names for different types of corpses—“crispy critters,” “stinkers,” “floaters,” “dunkers,” and “Headless Horsemen,” just to name a few. Butch Farabee, national emergency services coordinator for the National Park ..

2003, Laurence Gonzales, Deep Survival: Who Lives, who Dies, and why : True Stories of Miraculous Endurance and Sudden Death, W. W. Norton & Company, →ISBN, page 39:

... of women who'd been murdered in 1980 and unclaimed bodies that had turned up for years after that. He'd become acquainted with a virtual dictionary of shrug-off terms for corpses - floaters, crispy critters, headless horsemen.

2012, Gregg Hurwitz, You're Next, St. Martin's Press, →ISBN, page 83:

Right around this time another headless body was found, I used to call these bodies they were finding at that time, 'The Headless Horsemen'. Cutting off the heads of suspected informants does send a clear message.

2021, Peter James Ford, Mysticism in Newburyport: Mystic Rider, Balboa Press, →ISBN:

(slang) A corpse of a man that is missing the head due to decapitation.


help along

en-verb

help along (third-person singular simple present helps along, present participle helping along, simple past and past participle helped along)

helps along (present singular third-person)
helping along (participle present)
helped along (participle past)
helped along (past)

Max could no longer move his hind legs and was defecating all over the floor, so Jeff thought it was time to help him along.


goodification

en-noun

goodification (usually uncountable, plural goodifications)

From good + -ification or goodify + -ication.

2014 February 24, Reb Biker, “Negro goodification!”, in alt.flame.cincinnati (Usenet), retrieved 2022-08-24:

Homicide detectives are investigating the goodification of a 2-year-old sowlette that gave a bat its wings after suffering apparent burns while under the supervision of its jizz donor at Schofield Barracks.

2017 November 2, Casa de los peregrinos, “Ghetto lobster”, in rec.food.cooking (Usenet), retrieved 2022-08-24:

An 18-year-old trigger teennigger, Dakale Bowman aka Sean Bowman, was arrested Monday and charged with murder in the goodification of 16-year-old anus lipped teendusa Taiyania Thompson that was ventilated in an apepartment near Gallaudet University on Thursday and gave a bat its wings the following Sunday, January 28, authorities said.

2018 February 21, Hansi Gehirn-Schaden, “Anus lipped teendusa posing with guns for social media was goodified by its boonfriend”, in talk.politics.guns (Usenet), retrieved 2022-08-23:

(Internet slang, offensive, ethnic slur) The death or murder of a black person.


drop off the hooks

en-verb

drop off the hooks (third-person singular simple present drops off the hooks, present participle dropping off the hooks, simple past and past participle dropped off the hooks)

drops off the hooks (present singular third-person)
dropping off the hooks (participle present)
dropped off the hooks (participle past)
dropped off the hooks (past)

"You'd do harm if you dared to," the woman said. "You'd like to kill him. […] We don't want him to drop off the hooks. Not much!'

1921, C. N. Williamson, A. M. Williamson, The Great Pearl Secret:

(idiomatic, euphemistic, colloquial, humorous) To die.


rest in piss

Modelled on rest in peace by replacing peace with near-homophone piss.

(humorous, derogatory) Said to mock a deceased person, or one who has suffered a great misfortune.


hopping vampire

en-noun

hopping vampire (plural hopping vampires)


Grim Reaper paradox

A philosophical problem related to Benardete's paradox, but involving countably many Grim Reapers, each of which will kill the person in question at a certain time (if still alive), taking a certain period of time to do it.


en-verb

kill0r (third-person singular simple present kill0rs, present participle kill0ring, simple past and past participle kill0red)

> How did you know it was Fury?
The "We are the Furbies and will kill0r j00 4ll!" msgs to the GC probably gave it away.

2001 June 19, Kit, “When Furby attacks......”, in rec.games.computer.planetarion (Usenet), retrieved 2022-05-06:

Anyone who listened to my song, thanks, but I've missed any comments - my NNTP server only keeps posts for a week, then it kill0rs them. Boo-urns!

2001 September 4, Jonathan McArthur, “Eh, fuck it.”, in alt.music.radiohead (Usenet), retrieved 2022-05-06:

14) Spike and Angel are trying to kill0r the middle huge demons but are doing sweet FA damage. Cue some Fatherly and Son dialogue between Spike, Angel and Connor.

2004 May 23, Dan Lam, “Part two of the Angel Final Episode”, in alt.tv.angel (Usenet), retrieved 2022-05-06:

I HAVE TEH KILL0rED 10 MILLION PEOPLES. I BLAME THE WAR ON TERROR AS I EMULATED THE SHOOTERS

2004 July 29, David Beamish, “BAN THIS SICK FILTH! AGAIN!”, in uk.games.video.misc (Usenet), retrieved 2022-05-06:

I'm pretty sure that if Ganon had been left out of TP, Mr Guest would be saying 'TEHY HVAE KILL0RED TEH Z3LDAR!!11!!one!'

2006 January 25, Sir Chewbury Gubbins, “Zelda TP developer: "we're preparing more than you could possibly ever, ever, ever expect"”, in alt.games.video.nintendo.gameboy.advance (Usenet), retrieved 2022-05-06:


death threat

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

A threat to kill another person or a group of people.


guillotinee

[…]; a cardboard guillotine with a cardboard guillotinee that her father had made from an eggbox;

Most of the time, he had the unpleasant job of first assistant, the guy who has to drag the ‘guillotinee’ through the lunette by his head and hold him steady while the blade comes down.

2003, Piers Letcher, “Eccentric Pioneers”, in Eccentric France: The Bradt Guide to Mad, Magical and Marvellous France, Bradt Travel Guides Ltd; The Globe Pequot Press Inc, →ISBN, page 68:

He [Pierre-Simon Laplace] was friends with the chemist, taxman and guillotinee Antoine Lavoisier (see Chapter 7), and together they produced influential work on the nature of heat.

2021, Adam Rutherford, Hannah Fry, Rutherford & Fry’s Complete Guide to Absolutely Everything, Bantam Press, →ISBN:


tricennal

From mistaken use of Medieval Latin trīcennāle, neuter substantive of Latin trīcennālis (“tricennial”), from trīcennium (“30-year period”) + -ālis (“-al: forming adjectives”), from trīcennis (“30-year”) + -ium (“-ium: forming abstract nouns”), from trīciēs (“30 times”) + annus (“year”) + -is (“forming compound adjectives”). Doublet of tricennial.

suffix

Your forefathers sawe somwhat, whiche made this constitution, against the venalitie and sale of Masses, that vnder peine of suspending, no priest shuld sell his sayinge of tricennals, or annals.

1537, H. Latimer, Sermon to Clergie, E2:

(Christianity, obsolete) Synonym of trental, set of 30 requiem masses, the payment for such services.


on eternal patrol

(idiomatic, of a submarine) Lost at sea.


cement shoes

(crime, euphemistic) A largely-apocryphal method of execution or dead-body disposal said to be used by the Mafia or other similar organized crime groups, wherein a block of concrete is poured around the victim's feet and allowed to set before the victim is thrown into a body of water (to drown if still alive).


Asharshylyk

From Kazakh ашаршылық (aşarşylyq, “famine, hunger”).

bor

A widespread famine that afflicted Kazakhstan from 1930-1933.

another famine that affected Ukraine during Soviet times


widow inheritance

A practice whereby a widow is required to marry a male relative of her late husband, often his brother


widow cleansing

A group of women in western Kenya is fighting "widow-cleansing", a traditional ritual practiced by Luo ethnic communities in some of the poorer, more rural areas of the country.

2017 December 6, “Kenya widows fight sexual 'cleansing' practise”, in BBC News:

The practices of widow cleansing, as well as widow inheritance, pose a serious risk of spreading HIV/AIDS to individuals and among the wider community.

2019 May 23, Roseline Orwa, “Kenya: education, stigma and widow cleansing”, in LSE blog:

(Africa) A tradition that requires widowed women to have sexual intercourse as a form of ritual purification

Sexual rites of passage#Sexual cleansing of widows


disco matanga

From disco + Swahili matanga (“funeral”).

As a result of the low socio-economic conditions in Busia, ‘disco matanga’ aims at driving people to raise money for a deceased´s funeral.

2021 September 6, “Tackling harmful cultural practices: Disco Matanga”, in (Please provide the book title or journal name), Terre des Hommes:

Kilifi county women leaders have warned of an expected rise in teenage pregnancies among school-going girls in February 2023, following the lifting of the disco matanga ban by Public Service and Gender CS Aisha Jumwa.

2022 December 24, Daniel Mwamburi, “Teens at risk of pregnancy after return of disco matanga, Kilifi women leaders warn”, in NTV:

(Kenya) A funeral party, typically organized to raise funds for the burial


war porn

(slang, somewhat derogatory) Graphic videos or images of violence collected in war zones, often viewed voyeuristically for emotional gratification.


assume room temperature

en-verb

assume room temperature (third-person singular simple present assumes room temperature, present participle assuming room temperature, simple past and past participle assumed room temperature)

assumes room temperature (present singular third-person)
assuming room temperature (participle present)
assumed room temperature (participle past)
assumed room temperature (past)

LL-Q1860 (eng)-Flame, not lame-assume room temperature.wav

(slang, idiomatic, euphemistic) To die; to be killed.


twelvemonth's mind

en-noun

twelvemonth's mind (plural twelvemonths' minds)

twelvemonths' minds (plural)
twelvemonth mind (alternative)

(Christianity, obsolete) Synonym of year's mind.


year's mind

years' minds (plural)
year mind (alternative)

Variant of earlier Old English ġēarġemynd, from ġēar (“year”) + ġemynd (“memory”).

(Christianity) A requiem mass or other commemoration of a dead person held one year after death or burial.


NDEr

However, Dr Rommer believed that despite the NDEs being distressing, it still had positive, life-changing effects such as the NDEr becoming less judgemental and feeling an increased love of life and heightened sense of morality.

2014, Penny Sartori, Wisdom of Near-Death Experiences, Watkins Media Limited, →ISBN:


death flag

Calque of Japanese 死亡フラグ (shibō furagu).

(fandom slang, chiefly Japanese media) A trope suggesting to the viewer that a character will die.

死亡フラグ

trope signalling imminent character death


room temperature challenge

room temperature challenge (plural room temperature challenges)

LL-Q1860 (eng)-Flame, not lame-room temperature challenge.wav

From the fact that one's body temperature reaches room temperature after death.

When I first found you here, I could've sworn you were doing the room temperature challenge. Then ... BOOM, just like that you started breathing. Scared the shit outta me.

2024 March 31, Barbara Butterfield, Probable Cause, Xlibris Corporation, →ISBN, →OCLC:

Nevertheless, with the cancer fairly advanced, have to accept that there is a decent chance I'll be taking the Room Temperature Challenge rather sooner than I would have liked.

2024 September 12, Simon Boas, A Beginner's Guide to Dying: 'Has anyone ever written a more inspirational paean to the joy of life?' Daily Mail, Swift Press, →ISBN:

(humorous) A notional challenge where the goal is to die.


no zuo no die

Calque of Chinese 不作死就不會死 /不作死就不会死 (bù zuōsǐ jiù bùhuì sǐ, “You will not get into trouble if you do not seek trouble”) or Chinese 不作不死.

calque

Joe was stopped by police near the school zone. No zuo no die.

2019, Changming Yuan, “Trade Deficit: Chinese Exported into English”, in T. R. Mwanaka, editor, Nationalism: (mis)understanding Donald Trump's Capitalism, Racism, Global Politics, International Trade and Media Wars, volume 2, →ISBN:

Due to just desert, the offenders' fault is clear: death befalls one only because one commits a heinous crime(s) first.[…]In the Peng Shu and Hu Haolong case (#3), one netizen said, "[The crime was] shocking. No zuo no die."

2021 November 15, Bin Liang, Jianhong Liu, Chinese Netizens' Opinions on Death Sentences: An Empirical Examination, University of Michigan Press, →ISBN, page 73:

He Shishi laughed at the side. "This is what we called No Zuo No Die (stew in one's own juices)."

2022 December 22, Yao Yao Zhi Xin, Give Me Your Hands and Marry Me 19 Anthology, BEIJING BOOK CO. INC., →ISBN:

He stretched out his hand to support Li Hanyu, who was unconscious in pain, but still pushed it away in disgust. Her hand: "Ugly girl, get out of here!" Jing Hengbo let go of his hand, and with a thud, the guy fell to the ground, and the back of his head hit a stone... "no Zuo no Die." Jing Hengbo Road.^([sic])

2023 April 12, 天下归元, 本无心 上（英文版）, 露露, →ISBN:

(Chinglish) You won't die if you do not seek death; you will not get into trouble if you do not seek trouble.


unaliver

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

(Internet slang, euphemistic, algospeak) Synonym of killer.


reginacide

en-noun

reginacide (countable and uncountable, plural reginacides)

reginacides (plural)
reginicide (alternative)

[A sketch of Edward Oxford’s attempted assassination of Queen Victoria.]

1840, The Reginacide, or, An Attack on the Constitution, London: H. Hilliard, […]:

It is related that once upon a time in a small room of a large house three little girls were seated. They were pretty, they were poor, and they were princesses. Before them stood a fat man with a white beard. […] To the first he said: You will be a duchess and be burned to death. To the second: You will be a queen and fly for your life. To the third: You will be an empress and go mad on your throne. […] In any event, though the astrologer may have foreseen regalias, he could not foretell the reginacide.

1898 September 24, Edgar Saltus, “The Empress of Austria”, in Robert J[oseph] Collier, editor, Collier’s Weekly: An Illustrated Journal of Art, Literature and Current Events, volume XXI, number 25, New York, N.Y.: Peter Fenelon Collier, page 2, column 1:

In view of the permission of reginacide in Pius V’s excommunication of Elizabeth I (Regnans in excelsis, 1570), most English Protestants (and Wesley with them) were convinced that Roman Catholics were disloyal citizens, ex professo.

1984, Albert C[ook] Outler, “Wesley and His Sources”, in The Works of John Wesley, bicentennial edition, volume 1 (Sermons, I, 1–33), Nashville, Tenn.: Abingdon Press, →ISBN, Introduction, footnote 33, page 77:

When I saw the size of the bruise under her whiteface, I had to be restrained from storming Blachernae and committing reginacide.

2002, Alan Gordon, chapter 6, in A Death in the Venetian Quarter: A Medieval Mystery, New York, N.Y.: St. Martin’s Minotaur, →ISBN, page 80:

(countable and uncountable) The killing of a queen (female monarch or wife of a king).

But the wasps make no such migration. The males and the old queens and workers all die when the autumn frosts set in, while the young queens, which have yet to lay their eggs, hie away to find protection in some quiet nook, where they remain until the first bright days of spring. It is then that they sally forth in search of a suitable place to commence their nests, and frequently fall victims to some one who destroys them as depredators of fruit and progenitors of countless enemies of humanity. Should any of my hearers ever be induced to commit such a regicide, or rather reginacide, I beg they will remember that the insect itself and its offspring, if allowed to survive, would remove from both field and garden incalculable numbers of small caterpillars and other larvæ which are so harmful to vegetation.

1886 December 2, F. Maule Campbell, “The Habits and Economy of Our Social Wasps”, in John Hopkinson, editor, Transactions of the Hertfordshire Natural History Society and Field Club, volume IV (October, 1885, to October, 1887), London: Gurney & Jackson, […], published 1888, page 154:

How can I “sprinkle peppermint on the bees” between the frames of the hive? I suppose I am to move them all from their places in order to do it, and I must also more them in order to find the queen and commit reginacide.

1898 July 5, R. C. A., “Strengthening Swarms”, in Tho[ma]s W[illia]m Cowan, W[illiam] Broughton Carr, editors, The British Bee Journal, and Bee-Keepers’ Adviser, volume XXVI (January–December, 1898), London: Simpkin, Marshall, Hamilton, Kent, & Co., […], published 1898 July 21, Queries and Replies, page 287, column 2:

On page 297 [“Queens Not Balled Thru Robbers”], that quotation from a foreign bee-paper, about the foolishness of thinking that robber-bees ball a queen, is probably all right in the main. Robbers are indeed there for honey—not for reginacide—but perchance no one interferes, and after awhile the honey is gone, and the hive is filled with a miscellaneous crowd largely new comers, who are like a city mob, “the more part know not wherefore they are come together.”

1900 June 14, E. E. Hasty, “The Afterthought: The ‘Old Reliable’ seen thru New and Unreliable Glasses”, in George W. York, editor, American Bee Journal, 40th year, number 24, Chicago, Ill., Robber-Bees and Balled Queens, page 374, column 1:

Whenever a Florida home-owner sees a small crater-like opening with a mound around it in the soil on his property he will treat the area with fire-ant poison which will clear up the area, but the fire-ants move to an adjacent area. The loyal fire-ant soldiers will immediately bring home the poison to feed their queen. Little do they realize that they are committing reginacide, or queen-killing! Unwittingly they are murdering their mother.

2012 April 27, Sidney Owitz, “The Ten Plagues”, in A Mosaic, Bloomington, Ind.: AuthorHouse, →ISBN, page 181:

(countable and uncountable) The killing of a queen (reproductive female insect).


chick culling

(agriculture) The culling (destruction) of chicks (baby birds, typically chickens). In the egg industry, this means destruction of male chicks at birth because they will not lay eggs.


strange fruit

We speak for the brothers behind bars whose words, at the very least, must be liberated
We speak for the strange fruit hung from trees
We speak for the brothers who drowned in alcohol, and whose spirits were pierced by needles

1986, Joseph Beam, “Introduction”, in In The Life:

A person who has been lynched by hanging; such people collectively.


gwarosa

Borrowed from Korean 과로사 (gwarosa). Doublet of guolaosi and karoshi.

It takes Park Hyun-suk, a widow who lost her husband to gwarosa – the Korean word for death by overwork – a long time to find a photo of them together.

2018 November 4, Jake Kwon and Alexandra Field, “South Koreans are working themselves to death. Can they get their lives back?”, in CNN:


deathfluencer

Blend of death + influencer, equivalent to death + -fluencer.

“The stigma and taboos around talking about death have been way reduced,” Cake’s co-founder Suelin Chen, 38, said. This has driven conversation across social media, spurred interest in deathfluencers (they will discuss how funeral homes are responding to the coronavirus but also whether your pet will eat your eyeballs) and increased traffic to end-of-life platforms.

2020 July 16, Jennifer Miller, “Boom Time for Death Planning”, in The New York Times:

‘Deathfluencers’ have appeared on TikTok and a new breed of entrepreneurs have entered the traditionally staid funeral business looking to shake things up.

2022 February 25, Samuel Holleran, “How popular culture helps with the business of death”, in Pursuit, The University of Melbourne:

I had steadily followed and watched three years' worth of videos from the YouTube channel AskAMortician by Caitlin Doughty, a California-based funeral director and activist who founded The Order of the Good Death in 2011 and in doing so, is the primary media personality or deathfluencer and originator of "death positivity" as a label for the ideological orientation of the movement I study in 2013.

2023, Eveliina Kuitunen, "Dying matters: An ethnography of the death awareness movement in the ostensible West ", thesis submitted to the University of Oxford, page 26

(informal) A social-media personality focused on death and/or funerary practices.


necrogamy

necrogamy (countable and uncountable, plural necrogamies)

These accounts seem to imply, indeed to depict, necrogamy (copulation with a corpse) in the netherworld…

2009 May 18, Peter Metevelis, “Japanese Flood Myths”, in Japanese Mythology and the Primeval World: A Comparative Symbolic Approach, iUniverse, →ISBN, page 425:

If you‘ve ever utilized the website Ancestry.com, you‘ve also gone to the Mormons for help. Family ancestry and genealogy are definitely their jam. When there‘s polygamy in your church history, big families happen. What I didn‘t realize is that something called necrogamy is also their jam. Yes, you read that correctly. Necrogamy. The process of marrying the dead.

2019 March 5, Mallory O'Meara, The Lady from the Black Lagoon: Hollywood Monsters and the Lost Legacy of Milicent Patrick, Harlequin Enterprises, →ISBN:

2020, Mbosowo Bassey Udok, “Chapter 16: Theological Response to the Culture of Necrogamy in Ibibio Land”, in Handbook of Research on the Impact of Culture in Conflict Prevention and Peacebuilding, IGI Global, →ISBN, page 268:

Posthumous marriage
posthumous marriage#English

Posthumous marriage, a legal state where a dead person is retroactively considered to have been married for legal purposes, such as inheritance.


chevra kadisha

/ˈxɛvrə kəˈdiːʃə/

Borrowed from Hebrew חֶבְרָה קַדִּישָׁא.

bor+

חֶבְרָה קַדִּישָׁא

The oldest or most distinguished member of the Ḥevra Kadisha should ask forgiveness from the deceased by name.

2024, David Golinkin, “What Are The Sources And Halakhic Requirements For The Tohorah Ritual?”, in Responsa in a Moment, volume 4, page 226:

(Judaism) A society that ensures proper treatment of the dead before burial.


met mitzvah

(Judaism) A dead body with no kin or no known kin to mourn it, which anyone is obligated to bury.


yimakh shemo

From Yiddish ימח־שמו (yimákh shmóy, “may his name be obliterated”), in turn from Biblical Hebrew יִמַּח שְׁמוֹ (yīmmaḥ šəmō, “may his name be erased”).

der

יִמַּח שְׁמוֹ

yimakh shemoy (alternative)
yemach shemo (alternative)
yimach shemo (alternative)

Traditional Jewish curse, appended to the names of infamous enemies of the Jewish people: May his name be erased.


From 86 (“get rid of, kill”) + 47 (“second presidency of Donald Trump”)

af

In a now-deleted post on Instagram, Comey shared a photo of what he described as a "shell formation" on a beach that formed the numbers "8647."

2025 May 15, Nnamdi Egwuonwu, “Former FBI Director James Comey under investigation for post seen as a potential threat to Trump's life”, in NBC News:

The former FBI director James Comey has said it did not occur to him that that the numbers 8647 – which he spotted spelled out in seashells on a beach, and posted on social media – could be interpreted as a call to assassinate the president, as many supporters of Donald Trump have claimed.

2025 May 16, Edward Helmore, “What does ‘8647’ really mean? Not what Trump’s supporters are saying”, in The Guardian:

(US politics, slang) A numeric code advocating for the impeachment of (and in some cases, the death of) Donald Trump.


From 86 (“get rid of, kill”) + 46 (“Joe Biden”)

The number 86 has also been used by Republicans calling for the impeachment of Joe Biden – for example, T-shirts sold on Amazon reading “8646”, indicating a call to impeach Biden (the 46th president) – with some liberals accusing the right of deliberately misunderstanding Comey’s intent to score political points.

(US politics, slang) A numeric code advocating for the impeachment of (and in some cases, the death of) Joe Biden.


promortalism

ISD analysts don’t believe promortalism has been a primary motivator of violence in previous cases it’s been linked to, she adds.

2025 May 21, Manisha Krishnan, “IVF Clinic Bombing Suspect Was Linked to ‘Anti-Life’ Ideology. Experts Fear Its Growing Influence”, in WIRED, archived from the original on 2025-05-21:

A philosophical belief that holds that it is better for a being to die rather than continue living.


death penny

(memorial plaque): Referencing its resemblance to the one-penny coins in circulation at the time.

The soldier shook his head. "I have tied them fast," he said, "and they have no death-penny in their mouths to pay the ferryman to take them over the dark river."

1873, Emma Leslie, The Captives, page 32:

If so, it is a strange remnant of Pagan customs; and the death penny—that was to pay Charon for the passage over the Styx.

1877, B. Gibbons, “Servian Customs, Rites, and Legends”, in Edwin Paxton Hood, editor, The Argonaut, volume VII, number 49, page 40:

You will not see him now, till a pinch of dust has been sprinkled on your brow, and the death-penny put into your mouth. Then, when you have crossed the dark river, he will be waiting for you on the other side.

1892, George Whyte-Melville, The Gladiators, page 128:

(Greek mythology, Roman mythology) Synonym of Charon's obol.


Charon's obol

Also, the Charon's obol of classical tradition was a low-value coin, a symbol that death makes rich and poor equal.

2018, Rory Naismith, editor, Money and Coinage in the Middle Ages, →ISBN, page 337:

However, in tombs all over the cemetery the use of "Charon's obols" was widely practiced, primarily in the form of the local Kolkhidki minted after the Persian weight standard.

2020, Franco De Angelis, editor, A Companion to Greeks Across the Ancient World, →ISBN, page 445:

In Pieria, particularly, gold coins or pseudo-coins were employed as lamellae, also being inscribed and on at least two occasions deposited in the burial in the same way as a Charon's obol.

2022, Glenn W. Most, editor, Studies on the Derveni Papyrus, Volume II, →ISBN, page 318:

(Greek mythology, Roman mythology) A coin placed in or on the mouth of a deceased person as a payment or bribe for Charon, the ferryman of Hades.