"living death" meaning in English

See living death in All languages combined, or Wiktionary

Noun

Audio: En-au-living death.ogg Forms: living deaths [plural]
Head templates: {{en-noun|-|s}} living death (usually uncountable, plural living deaths)
  1. (idiomatic) A condition of suffering, solitude, or impairment so extreme as to deprive one's existence of all happiness and meaning. Tags: idiomatic, uncountable, usually Related terms: agony, desolation, misery
    Sense id: en-living_death-en-noun--EDNTmgQ Categories (other): English entries with incorrect language header, Pages with 1 entry, Pages with entries

Inflected forms

{
  "forms": [
    {
      "form": "living deaths",
      "tags": [
        "plural"
      ]
    }
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  "head_templates": [
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      "expansion": "living death (usually uncountable, plural living deaths)",
      "name": "en-noun"
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  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "noun",
  "senses": [
    {
      "categories": [
        {
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "English entries with incorrect language header",
          "parents": [
            "Entries with incorrect language header",
            "Entry maintenance"
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          "source": "w"
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        {
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "Pages with entries",
          "parents": [],
          "source": "w"
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      "examples": [
        {
          "ref": "c. 1593 (date written), [William Shakespeare], The Tragedy of King Richard the Third. […] (First Quarto), London: […] Valentine Sims [and Peter Short] for Andrew Wise, […], published 1597, →OCLC, [Act I, scene ii], signature B2, recto:",
          "text": "La[dy Anne]. Neuer hung poiſon on a fouler toade,\nOut of my ſight thou doeſt infect my eies.\n Glo[ucester]. Thine eies ſweete Lady haue infected mine.\n La[dy Anne]. Would they were baſiliſkes to ſtrike thee dead.\n Glo[ucester]. I would they were that I might die at once,\nFor now they kill me with a liuing death: […]",
          "type": "quote"
        },
        {
          "ref": "1860, George Eliot [pseudonym; Mary Ann Evans], “Tending to Refute the Popular Prejudice against the Present of a Pocket-knife”, in The Mill on the Floss […], volume II, Edinburgh, London: William Blackwood and Sons, →OCLC, book III (The Downfall), page 82:",
          "text": "Mr Tulliver, who had begun, in his intervals of consciousness, to manifest an irritability which often appeared to have as a direct effect the recurrence of spasmodic rigidity and insensibility, had lain in this living death throughout the critical hours when the noise of the sale came nearest to his chamber.",
          "type": "quote"
        },
        {
          "ref": "1893, A[rthur] Conan Doyle, “The Fall of the Catinats”, in The Refugees: A Tale of Two Continents, volume II, London: Longmans, Green, and Co., →OCLC, [part I (In the Old World)], page 188:",
          "text": "If their creed were no longer tolerated, then, and if they remained true to it, they must either fly from the country or spend a living death tugging at an oar or working in a chain-gang upon the roads.",
          "type": "quote"
        },
        {
          "ref": "1904, E. Phillips Oppenheim, chapter 9, in The Master Mummer:",
          "text": "\"[W]e cling so closely here to our own doctrine of isolation. . . .\"\n\"Isobel is intended, then?\" I asked.\n\"For the Church,\" Madame Richard answered. . . .\n\"Madame,\" I answered, \"Isobel is meant for life—not a living death.\"",
          "type": "quote"
        },
        {
          "ref": "2004 November 7, John Schwartz, James Estrin, “Living for Today, Locked in a Paralyzed Body”, in New York Times, retrieved 2014-06-12:",
          "text": "A.L.S., or Lou Gehrig's disease, is often described as a kind of living death in which the body goes flaccid while the mind remains intact and acutely aware.",
          "type": "quote"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "A condition of suffering, solitude, or impairment so extreme as to deprive one's existence of all happiness and meaning."
      ],
      "id": "en-living_death-en-noun--EDNTmgQ",
      "links": [
        [
          "suffering",
          "suffering"
        ],
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          "solitude",
          "solitude"
        ],
        [
          "impairment",
          "impairment"
        ],
        [
          "deprive",
          "deprive"
        ],
        [
          "happiness",
          "happiness"
        ],
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          "meaning",
          "meaning"
        ]
      ],
      "raw_glosses": [
        "(idiomatic) A condition of suffering, solitude, or impairment so extreme as to deprive one's existence of all happiness and meaning."
      ],
      "related": [
        {
          "word": "agony"
        },
        {
          "word": "desolation"
        },
        {
          "word": "misery"
        }
      ],
      "tags": [
        "idiomatic",
        "uncountable",
        "usually"
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  "sounds": [
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  "word": "living death"
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{
  "forms": [
    {
      "form": "living deaths",
      "tags": [
        "plural"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "-",
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  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "noun",
  "related": [
    {
      "word": "agony"
    },
    {
      "word": "desolation"
    },
    {
      "word": "misery"
    }
  ],
  "senses": [
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        "English entries with incorrect language header",
        "English idioms",
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        "English multiword terms",
        "English nouns",
        "English terms with quotations",
        "English uncountable nouns",
        "Pages with 1 entry",
        "Pages with entries",
        "Quotation templates to be cleaned"
      ],
      "examples": [
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          "ref": "c. 1593 (date written), [William Shakespeare], The Tragedy of King Richard the Third. […] (First Quarto), London: […] Valentine Sims [and Peter Short] for Andrew Wise, […], published 1597, →OCLC, [Act I, scene ii], signature B2, recto:",
          "text": "La[dy Anne]. Neuer hung poiſon on a fouler toade,\nOut of my ſight thou doeſt infect my eies.\n Glo[ucester]. Thine eies ſweete Lady haue infected mine.\n La[dy Anne]. Would they were baſiliſkes to ſtrike thee dead.\n Glo[ucester]. I would they were that I might die at once,\nFor now they kill me with a liuing death: […]",
          "type": "quote"
        },
        {
          "ref": "1860, George Eliot [pseudonym; Mary Ann Evans], “Tending to Refute the Popular Prejudice against the Present of a Pocket-knife”, in The Mill on the Floss […], volume II, Edinburgh, London: William Blackwood and Sons, →OCLC, book III (The Downfall), page 82:",
          "text": "Mr Tulliver, who had begun, in his intervals of consciousness, to manifest an irritability which often appeared to have as a direct effect the recurrence of spasmodic rigidity and insensibility, had lain in this living death throughout the critical hours when the noise of the sale came nearest to his chamber.",
          "type": "quote"
        },
        {
          "ref": "1893, A[rthur] Conan Doyle, “The Fall of the Catinats”, in The Refugees: A Tale of Two Continents, volume II, London: Longmans, Green, and Co., →OCLC, [part I (In the Old World)], page 188:",
          "text": "If their creed were no longer tolerated, then, and if they remained true to it, they must either fly from the country or spend a living death tugging at an oar or working in a chain-gang upon the roads.",
          "type": "quote"
        },
        {
          "ref": "1904, E. Phillips Oppenheim, chapter 9, in The Master Mummer:",
          "text": "\"[W]e cling so closely here to our own doctrine of isolation. . . .\"\n\"Isobel is intended, then?\" I asked.\n\"For the Church,\" Madame Richard answered. . . .\n\"Madame,\" I answered, \"Isobel is meant for life—not a living death.\"",
          "type": "quote"
        },
        {
          "ref": "2004 November 7, John Schwartz, James Estrin, “Living for Today, Locked in a Paralyzed Body”, in New York Times, retrieved 2014-06-12:",
          "text": "A.L.S., or Lou Gehrig's disease, is often described as a kind of living death in which the body goes flaccid while the mind remains intact and acutely aware.",
          "type": "quote"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "A condition of suffering, solitude, or impairment so extreme as to deprive one's existence of all happiness and meaning."
      ],
      "links": [
        [
          "suffering",
          "suffering"
        ],
        [
          "solitude",
          "solitude"
        ],
        [
          "impairment",
          "impairment"
        ],
        [
          "deprive",
          "deprive"
        ],
        [
          "happiness",
          "happiness"
        ],
        [
          "meaning",
          "meaning"
        ]
      ],
      "raw_glosses": [
        "(idiomatic) A condition of suffering, solitude, or impairment so extreme as to deprive one's existence of all happiness and meaning."
      ],
      "tags": [
        "idiomatic",
        "uncountable",
        "usually"
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  "word": "living death"
}

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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 2024-12-08 from the enwiktionary dump dated 2024-12-04 using wiktextract (bb46d54 and 0c3c9f6). 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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