"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 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, Entries with translation boxes, Pages with 1 entry, Pages with entries, Terms with Dutch translations, Terms with Finnish translations, Terms with German translations, Terms with Polish translations Disambiguation of English entries with incorrect language header: 92 8 Disambiguation of Entries with translation boxes: 84 16 Disambiguation of Pages with 1 entry: 88 12 Disambiguation of Pages with entries: 94 6 Disambiguation of Terms with Dutch translations: 80 20 Disambiguation of Terms with Finnish translations: 80 20 Disambiguation of Terms with German translations: 84 16 Disambiguation of Terms with Polish translations: 76 24
  2. (idiomatic) To suffer repeatedly (often mentally rather than physically); to suffer extreme embarrassment or anxiety. Tags: idiomatic Translations (suffer repeatedly): duizend doden sterven (Dutch), kuolla häpeään (Finnish), tausend Tode sterben (German), umrzeć tysiąc razy [perfective] (Polish)
    Sense id: en-die_a_thousand_deaths-en-verb-QnD5R33l Disambiguation of 'suffer repeatedly': 1 99

Inflected forms

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          "ref": "1594, Christopher Marlow[e], The Troublesome Raigne and Lamentable Death of Edward the Second, King of England: […], London: […] [Eliot’s Court Press] for Henry Bell, […], published 1622, →OCLC, (please specify the page):",
          "text": "Mor[timer] iu[nior]. Crie quittance Madam then, & loue not him. / Qu[een]. No, rather will I die a thousand deaths, / And yet I loue in vaine, heele nere loue me.",
          "type": "quote"
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          "ref": "c. 1601–1602 (date written), William Shakespeare, “Twelfe Night, or What You Will”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act V, scene i]:",
          "text": "And I, most jocund, apt and willingly, / To do you rest, a thousand deaths would die.",
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          "ref": "1764 December 24 (indicated as 1765), Onuphrio Muralto, translated by William Marshal [pseudonyms; Horace Walpole], chapter IV, in The Castle of Otranto, […], London: […] Tho[mas] Lownds […], →OCLC, page 150:",
          "text": "[T]ruſt me, believe me, I will die a thouſand deaths ſooner than conſent to injure you, […]",
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        "To die many times over (usually as preferred over some other undesirable action or occurrence)."
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        "(rhetorical) To die many times over (usually as preferred over some other undesirable action or occurrence)."
      ]
    },
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        {
          "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": "quote"
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          "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": "quote"
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          "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.",
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        "To suffer repeatedly (often mentally rather than physically); to suffer extreme embarrassment or anxiety."
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        "(idiomatic) To suffer repeatedly (often mentally rather than physically); to suffer extreme embarrassment or anxiety."
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        {
          "_dis1": "1 99",
          "code": "nl",
          "lang": "Dutch",
          "sense": "suffer repeatedly",
          "word": "duizend doden sterven"
        },
        {
          "_dis1": "1 99",
          "code": "fi",
          "lang": "Finnish",
          "sense": "suffer repeatedly",
          "word": "kuolla häpeään"
        },
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          "_dis1": "1 99",
          "code": "de",
          "lang": "German",
          "sense": "suffer repeatedly",
          "word": "tausend Tode sterben"
        },
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          "tags": [
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        }
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          "text": "Mor[timer] iu[nior]. Crie quittance Madam then, & loue not him. / Qu[een]. No, rather will I die a thousand deaths, / And yet I loue in vaine, heele nere loue me.",
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        "To die many times over (usually as preferred over some other undesirable action or occurrence)."
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        "(rhetorical) To die many times over (usually as preferred over some other undesirable action or occurrence)."
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          "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 […]",
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          "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": "quote"
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          "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": "quote"
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        "(idiomatic) To suffer repeatedly (often mentally rather than physically); to suffer extreme embarrassment or anxiety."
      ],
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  "translations": [
    {
      "code": "nl",
      "lang": "Dutch",
      "sense": "suffer repeatedly",
      "word": "duizend doden sterven"
    },
    {
      "code": "fi",
      "lang": "Finnish",
      "sense": "suffer repeatedly",
      "word": "kuolla häpeään"
    },
    {
      "code": "de",
      "lang": "German",
      "sense": "suffer repeatedly",
      "word": "tausend Tode sterben"
    },
    {
      "code": "pl",
      "lang": "Polish",
      "sense": "suffer repeatedly",
      "tags": [
        "perfective"
      ],
      "word": "umrzeć tysiąc razy"
    }
  ],
  "word": "die a thousand deaths"
}

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This page is a part of the kaikki.org machine-readable English dictionary. This dictionary is based on structured data extracted on 2025-01-15 from the enwiktionary dump dated 2025-01-01 using wiktextract (b941637 and 4230888). 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.

If you use this data in academic research, please cite Tatu Ylonen: Wiktextract: Wiktionary as Machine-Readable Structured Data, Proceedings of the 13th Conference on Language Resources and Evaluation (LREC), pp. 1317-1325, Marseille, 20-25 June 2022. Linking to the relevant page(s) under https://kaikki.org would also be greatly appreciated.