Crossword Dictionary

What's The Definition Of Death?

\Death\, n. [OE. deth, dea?, AS. de['a]?; akin to OS. d??, D. dood, G. tod, Icel. dau?i, Sw. & Dan. d["o]d, Goth. daupus; from a verb meaning to die. See {Die}, v. i., and cf. {Dead}.] 1. The cessation of all vital phenomena without capability of resuscitation, either in animals or plants. Note: Local death is going on at times and in all parts of the living body, in which individual cells and elements are being cast off and replaced by new; a process essential to life. General death is of two kinds; death of the body as a whole (somatic or systemic death), and death of the tissues. By the former is implied the absolute cessation of the functions of the brain, the circulatory and the respiratory organs; by the latter the entire disappearance of the vital actions of the ultimate structural constituents of the body. When death takes place, the body as a whole dies first, the death of the tissues sometimes not occurring until after a considerable interval. --Huxley. 2. Total privation or loss; extinction; cessation; as, the death of memory. The death of a language can not be exactly compared with the death of a plant. --J. Peile. 3. Manner of dying; act or state of passing from life. A death that I abhor. --Shak. Let me die the death of the righteous. --Num. xxiii. 10. 4. Cause of loss of life. Swiftly flies the feathered death. --Dryden. He caught his death the last county sessions. --Addison. 5. Personified: The destroyer of life, -- conventionally represented as a skeleton with a scythe. Death! great proprietor of all. --Young. And I looked, and behold a pale horse; and his name that at on him was Death. --Rev. vi. 8. 6. Danger of death. ``In deaths oft.'' --2 Cor. xi. 23. 7. Murder; murderous character. Not to suffer a man of death to live. --Bacon. 8. (Theol.) Loss of spiritual life. To be ??????? m????? is death. --Rom. viii. 6. 9. Anything so dreadful as to be like death. It was death to them to think of entertaining such doctrines. --Atterbury. And urged him, so that his soul was vexed unto death. --Judg. xvi. 16. Note: Death is much used adjectively and as the first part of a compound, meaning, in general, of or pertaining to death, causing or presaging death; as, deathbed or death bed; deathblow or death blow, etc. {Black death}. See {Black death}, in the Vocabulary. {Civil death}, the separation of a man from civil society, or the debarring him from the enjoyment of civil rights, as by banishment, attainder, abjuration of the realm, entering a monastery, etc. --Blackstone. {Death adder}. (Zo["o]l.) (a) A kind of viper found in South Africa ({Acanthophis tortor}); -- so called from the virulence of its venom. (b) A venomous Australian snake of the family {Elapid[ae]}, of several species, as the {Hoplocephalus superbus} and {Acanthopis antarctica}. {Death bell}, a bell that announces a death. The death bell thrice was heard to ring. --Mickle. {Death candle}, a light like that of a candle, viewed by the superstitious as presaging death. {Death damp}, a cold sweat at the coming on of death. {Death fire}, a kind of ignis fatuus supposed to forebode death. And round about in reel and rout, The death fires danced at night. --Coleridge. {Death grapple}, a grapple or struggle for life. {Death in life}, a condition but little removed from death; a living death. [Poetic] ``Lay lingering out a five years' death in life.'' --Tennyson. {Death knell}, a stroke or tolling of a bell, announcing a death. {Death rate}, the relation or ratio of the number of deaths to the population. At all ages the death rate is higher in towns than in rural districts. --Darwin. {Death rattle}, a rattling or gurgling in the throat of a dying person. {Death's door}, the boundary of life; the partition dividing life from death. {Death stroke}, a stroke causing death. {Death throe}, the spasm of death. {Death token}, the signal of approaching death. {Death warrant}. (a) (Law) An order from the proper authority for the execution of a criminal. (b) That which puts an end to expectation, hope, or joy. {Death wound}. (a) A fatal wound or injury. (b) (Naut.) The springing of a fatal leak. {Spiritual death} (Scripture), the corruption and perversion of the soul by sin, with the loss of the favor of God. {The gates of death}, the grave. Have the gates of death been opened unto thee? --Job xxxviii. 17. {The second death}, condemnation to eternal separation from God. --Rev. ii. 11. {To be the death of}, to be the cause of death to; to make die. ``It was one who should be the death of both his parents.'' --Milton. Syn: {Death}, {Decease}, {Demise}, {Departure}, {Release}. Usage: Death applies to the termination of every form of existence, both animal and vegetable; the other words only to the human race. Decease is the term used in law for the removal of a human being out of life in the ordinary course of nature. Demise was formerly confined to decease of princes, but is now sometimes used of distinguished men in general; as, the demise of Mr. Pitt. Departure and release are peculiarly terms of Christian affection and hope. A violent death is not usually called a decease. Departure implies a friendly taking leave of life. Release implies a deliverance from a life of suffering or sorrow.