# death

Pronunciation: say "DETH" /dɛθ/

## Noun

1. The permanent end of life in a person, animal, plant or cell, when it can no longer carry out the functions that keep it alive.
   - Simple: The end of life, when a living thing stops living for good.
   - _The doctors could do nothing to prevent his death._
   - _Cell death is a normal part of how the body renews its tissues._
2. Execution as a legal punishment; the carrying out of a sentence that ends a condemned person's life.
   - Simple: Being put to death as a punishment ordered by a court.
   - _The jury recommended death for the most serious of the charges._
   - _Many nations have abolished death as a punishment for any crime._
3. The collapse or final ending of something, such as a project, institution, or idea.
   - Simple: The end or failure of something, like a plan or a business.
   - _The death of the empire came not in battle but through slow decay._
   - _Critics announced the death of the genre far too early._
4. A cause of great stress, exhaustion, embarrassment, or other strongly negative feeling for someone.
   - Simple: Something that causes a person great stress, tiredness, or shame.
   - _Honestly, these early-morning meetings are going to be the death of me._
   - _He joked that his children's energy would be the death of him yet._
5. The figure who personifies dying, usually shown as a hooded male form carrying a scythe: the Grim Reaper.
   - Simple: A make-believe figure of death shown as a hooded man holding a large blade.
   - _Death came for him at midnight, scythe in hand, just as the legends warned._
   - _In the fresco, Death joins the dance, taking pope and pauper by the hand alike._
6. A condition of spiritual lifelessness, in which a person is regarded as separated from spiritual or divine life.
   - Simple: A state of being cut off from spiritual life or God.
   - _The sermon described sin as a kind of death that separates the soul from God._
   - _In that tradition, true death is spiritual, not the mere failing of the body._

## Origin

This word comes from Middle English "deeth" and Old English "dēaþ", tracing back through Proto-Germanic "*dauþuz" (compare Dutch "dood", German "Tod", and Swedish "död") to Proto-Indo-European "*dʰówtus". It is related to "die".

Source: DictionaryAI, https://dictionaryai.com/define/death (written from Wiktionary data, CC BY-SA 4.0: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/).