"on death's doorstep" meaning in English

{
  "etymology_templates": [
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "en",
        "2": "sit on death's doorstep"
      },
      "expansion": "sit on death's doorstep",
      "name": "m"
    }
  ],
  "etymology_text": "Probably a shortening of the phrasal verb sit on death's doorstep.",
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "en",
        "2": "phrase"
      },
      "expansion": "on death's doorstep",
      "name": "head"
    }
  ],
  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "phrase",
  "senses": [
    {
      "categories": [
        {
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "English entries with incorrect language header",
          "parents": [
            "Entries with incorrect language header",
            "Entry maintenance"
          ],
          "source": "w"
        }
      ],
      "examples": [
        {
          "ref": "2017, Anat Rosenthal, Health on Delivery",
          "text": "By the time she decided to seek help from a Voluntary Counseling and Testing (VCT) center near her village, she was on death's doorstep: dizzy and unable to walk, much less work.",
          "type": "quotation"
        },
        {
          "ref": "2018, Leila Sales, If You Don't Have Anything Nice to Say",
          "text": "But in my family, you follow through on your commitments and show up at school or work unless you are on death's doorstep. But maybe I was on death's doorstep, because Mom and I didn't even discuss the idea of my leaving the house.",
          "type": "quotation"
        },
        {
          "ref": "2020, Peter J. Adams, Reflecting on the Inevitable, page 218",
          "text": "Look, we all know that some of the things that we do will put us on death's doorstep one day.",
          "type": "quotation"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "Almost dead."
      ],
      "id": "en-on_death's_doorstep-en-phrase-49OU6vNO",
      "links": [
        [
          "dead",
          "dead"
        ]
      ]
    }
  ],
  "word": "on death's doorstep"
}

{
  "etymology_templates": [
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "en",
        "2": "sit on death's doorstep"
      },
      "expansion": "sit on death's doorstep",
      "name": "m"
    }
  ],
  "etymology_text": "Probably a shortening of the phrasal verb sit on death's doorstep.",
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "en",
        "2": "phrase"
      },
      "expansion": "on death's doorstep",
      "name": "head"
    }
  ],
  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "phrase",
  "senses": [
    {
      "categories": [
        "English entries with incorrect language header",
        "English lemmas",
        "English multiword terms",
        "English phrases",
        "English terms with quotations"
      ],
      "examples": [
        {
          "ref": "2017, Anat Rosenthal, Health on Delivery",
          "text": "By the time she decided to seek help from a Voluntary Counseling and Testing (VCT) center near her village, she was on death's doorstep: dizzy and unable to walk, much less work.",
          "type": "quotation"
        },
        {
          "ref": "2018, Leila Sales, If You Don't Have Anything Nice to Say",
          "text": "But in my family, you follow through on your commitments and show up at school or work unless you are on death's doorstep. But maybe I was on death's doorstep, because Mom and I didn't even discuss the idea of my leaving the house.",
          "type": "quotation"
        },
        {
          "ref": "2020, Peter J. Adams, Reflecting on the Inevitable, page 218",
          "text": "Look, we all know that some of the things that we do will put us on death's doorstep one day.",
          "type": "quotation"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "Almost dead."
      ],
      "links": [
        [
          "dead",
          "dead"
        ]
      ]
    }
  ],
  "word": "on death's doorstep"
}