"die a thousand deaths" meaning in English

See die a thousand deaths in All languages combined, or Wiktionary

Verb

Audio: en-au-die a thousand deaths.ogg [Australia] Forms: dies a thousand deaths [present, singular, third-person], dying a thousand deaths [participle, present], died a thousand deaths [participle, past], died a thousand deaths [past]
Head templates: {{en-verb|*}} die a thousand deaths (third-person singular simple present dies a thousand deaths, present participle dying a thousand deaths, simple past and past participle died a thousand deaths)
  1. (rhetorical) To die many times over (usually as preferred over some other undesirable action or occurrence).
    Sense id: en-die_a_thousand_deaths-en-verb-FLSAkIxY Categories (other): English entries with incorrect language header Disambiguation of English entries with incorrect language header: 64 36
  2. (idiomatic) To suffer repeatedly (often mentally rather than physically); to suffer extreme embarrassment or anxiety. Tags: idiomatic
    Sense id: en-die_a_thousand_deaths-en-verb-QnD5R33l

Inflected forms

Download JSON data for die a thousand deaths meaning in English (3.4kB)

{
  "forms": [
    {
      "form": "dies a thousand deaths",
      "tags": [
        "present",
        "singular",
        "third-person"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "dying a thousand deaths",
      "tags": [
        "participle",
        "present"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "died a thousand deaths",
      "tags": [
        "participle",
        "past"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "died a thousand deaths",
      "tags": [
        "past"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "args": {
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      "expansion": "die a thousand deaths (third-person singular simple present dies a thousand deaths, present participle dying a thousand deaths, simple past and past participle died a thousand deaths)",
      "name": "en-verb"
    }
  ],
  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "verb",
  "senses": [
    {
      "categories": [
        {
          "_dis": "64 36",
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "English entries with incorrect language header",
          "parents": [
            "Entries with incorrect language header",
            "Entry maintenance"
          ],
          "source": "w+disamb"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "To die many times over (usually as preferred over some other undesirable action or occurrence)."
      ],
      "id": "en-die_a_thousand_deaths-en-verb-FLSAkIxY",
      "links": [
        [
          "die",
          "die"
        ]
      ],
      "qualifier": "rhetorical",
      "raw_glosses": [
        "(rhetorical) To die many times over (usually as preferred over some other undesirable action or occurrence)."
      ]
    },
    {
      "categories": [],
      "examples": [
        {
          "ref": "1735, Alexander Pope, “A letter from a nun in Portugal to a gentleman in France”, in Mr. Pope’s Literary Correspondence, volume 3, London: E. Curll, page 89",
          "text": "[…] since I know no greater Pleasure than the Love of you, I should too willingly run the Risque of any Disadvantage that could happen by it. I die a thousand Deaths every Hour, and still revive, to die them over again […]",
          "type": "quotation"
        },
        {
          "ref": "1884, Tamenaga Shunsui, chapter 12, in Edward Greey, Shiuichiro Saito, transl., The Loyal Ronins, New York: G. P. Putnam’s Sons, page 81",
          "text": "[…] his enormous wealth yielded him no happiness, his suspicious soul feared a traitoress in each of his beautiful attendants, he trusted no one but his chief-councillor, Sir Small-grove, and while waiting for the just retribution he knew must sooner or later follow his crime, died a thousand deaths.",
          "type": "quotation"
        },
        {
          "ref": "1961, Dominic Behan, chapter 8, in Tell Dublin I Miss Her, New York: G.P. Putnam’s Sons, page 79",
          "text": "As she looked in the mirror over the fireplace that she might settle her hat-pin straight, she noticed that in touching the china dog she had disturbed the mantle cloth, and in so doing had exposed her hoard of pawn-tickets. Thanks be to God I noticed that, had anyone come in I’d have died a thousand deaths.",
          "type": "quotation"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "To suffer repeatedly (often mentally rather than physically); to suffer extreme embarrassment or anxiety."
      ],
      "id": "en-die_a_thousand_deaths-en-verb-QnD5R33l",
      "links": [
        [
          "suffer",
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        [
          "physical",
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        [
          "embarrassment",
          "embarrassment"
        ],
        [
          "anxiety",
          "anxiety"
        ]
      ],
      "raw_glosses": [
        "(idiomatic) To suffer repeatedly (often mentally rather than physically); to suffer extreme embarrassment or anxiety."
      ],
      "tags": [
        "idiomatic"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "sounds": [
    {
      "audio": "en-au-die a thousand deaths.ogg",
      "mp3_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/transcoded/1/14/En-au-die_a_thousand_deaths.ogg/En-au-die_a_thousand_deaths.ogg.mp3",
      "ogg_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/14/En-au-die_a_thousand_deaths.ogg",
      "tags": [
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      "text": "Audio (AU)"
    }
  ],
  "word": "die a thousand deaths"
}
{
  "categories": [
    "English entries with incorrect language header",
    "English lemmas",
    "English multiword terms",
    "English terms with audio links",
    "English verbs"
  ],
  "forms": [
    {
      "form": "dies a thousand deaths",
      "tags": [
        "present",
        "singular",
        "third-person"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "dying a thousand deaths",
      "tags": [
        "participle",
        "present"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "died a thousand deaths",
      "tags": [
        "participle",
        "past"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "died a thousand deaths",
      "tags": [
        "past"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "args": {
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      },
      "expansion": "die a thousand deaths (third-person singular simple present dies a thousand deaths, present participle dying a thousand deaths, simple past and past participle died a thousand deaths)",
      "name": "en-verb"
    }
  ],
  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "verb",
  "senses": [
    {
      "glosses": [
        "To die many times over (usually as preferred over some other undesirable action or occurrence)."
      ],
      "links": [
        [
          "die",
          "die"
        ]
      ],
      "qualifier": "rhetorical",
      "raw_glosses": [
        "(rhetorical) To die many times over (usually as preferred over some other undesirable action or occurrence)."
      ]
    },
    {
      "categories": [
        "English idioms",
        "English terms with quotations"
      ],
      "examples": [
        {
          "ref": "1735, Alexander Pope, “A letter from a nun in Portugal to a gentleman in France”, in Mr. Pope’s Literary Correspondence, volume 3, London: E. Curll, page 89",
          "text": "[…] since I know no greater Pleasure than the Love of you, I should too willingly run the Risque of any Disadvantage that could happen by it. I die a thousand Deaths every Hour, and still revive, to die them over again […]",
          "type": "quotation"
        },
        {
          "ref": "1884, Tamenaga Shunsui, chapter 12, in Edward Greey, Shiuichiro Saito, transl., The Loyal Ronins, New York: G. P. Putnam’s Sons, page 81",
          "text": "[…] his enormous wealth yielded him no happiness, his suspicious soul feared a traitoress in each of his beautiful attendants, he trusted no one but his chief-councillor, Sir Small-grove, and while waiting for the just retribution he knew must sooner or later follow his crime, died a thousand deaths.",
          "type": "quotation"
        },
        {
          "ref": "1961, Dominic Behan, chapter 8, in Tell Dublin I Miss Her, New York: G.P. Putnam’s Sons, page 79",
          "text": "As she looked in the mirror over the fireplace that she might settle her hat-pin straight, she noticed that in touching the china dog she had disturbed the mantle cloth, and in so doing had exposed her hoard of pawn-tickets. Thanks be to God I noticed that, had anyone come in I’d have died a thousand deaths.",
          "type": "quotation"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "To suffer repeatedly (often mentally rather than physically); to suffer extreme embarrassment or anxiety."
      ],
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          "suffer",
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          "repeatedly",
          "repeatedly"
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        ],
        [
          "physical",
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        [
          "embarrassment",
          "embarrassment"
        ],
        [
          "anxiety",
          "anxiety"
        ]
      ],
      "raw_glosses": [
        "(idiomatic) To suffer repeatedly (often mentally rather than physically); to suffer extreme embarrassment or anxiety."
      ],
      "tags": [
        "idiomatic"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "sounds": [
    {
      "audio": "en-au-die a thousand deaths.ogg",
      "mp3_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/transcoded/1/14/En-au-die_a_thousand_deaths.ogg/En-au-die_a_thousand_deaths.ogg.mp3",
      "ogg_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/14/En-au-die_a_thousand_deaths.ogg",
      "tags": [
        "Australia"
      ],
      "text": "Audio (AU)"
    }
  ],
  "word": "die a thousand deaths"
}

This page is a part of the kaikki.org machine-readable English dictionary. This dictionary is based on structured data extracted on 2024-05-03 from the enwiktionary dump dated 2024-05-02 using wiktextract (f4fd8c9 and c9440ce). The data shown on this site has been post-processed and various details (e.g., extra categories) removed, some information disambiguated, and additional data merged from other sources. See the raw data download page for the unprocessed wiktextract data.

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