Mawson, C.O.S., ed. (1870–1938). Roget’s International Thesaurus. 1922.
Class III. Words Relating to MatterSection III. Organic Matter
1. Vitality
1. Vitality in general
360. Death.
end [See End] -, cessation [See Cessation] -, loss -, extinction -, ebb- of life [See Life].
DEATH-WARRANT, deathwatch, death rattle, deathbed; stroke -, agonies -, shades -, valley of the shadow -, summons -, jaws -, hand -, bridge -, river- of death; Jordan, Jordan’s bank, “one more river to cross”; last -breath, – gasp, – agonies; dying -day, – breath, – agonies; swan song, chant du cygne [F.]; rigor mortis [L.]; Stygian shore; “crossing the bar” [Tennyson]; the great adventure.
euthanasia, euthanasy [rare]; happy release, bona mors [L.]; break-up of the system; natural -death, – decay; sudden -, violent- death; untimely end, taking off [colloq.], watery grave; debt of nature; mortification, heart failure, suffocation, asphyxia; fatal disease (disease) [See Disease]; deathblow (killing) [See Killing].
ANGEL OF DEATH, death’s bright angel, Azrael; King -of terrors, – Death; Death, doom (necessity) [See Necessity]; “Hell’s grim Tyrant” [Pope].
NECROLOGY, bills of mortality, obituary.
DEATH SONG (lamentation) [See Lamentation].
pay the debt to nature, shuffle off this mortal coil, take one’s last sleep; go the way of all flesh; hand -, pass- -in one’s checks, – in one’s chips [all slang]; go over to the -, join the- -greater number, – majority, – great majority; join the choir invisible; awake to life immortal; come -, turn- to dust; give an obolus to Charon; cross the Stygian ferry; go to one’s long account, go to one’s last home, go to Davy Jones’s locker, go to glory [colloq. or slang]; receive one’s death warrant, make one’s will, step out [colloq.], die a natural death, go out like the snuff of a candle; come to an untimely end; catch one’s death; go off the hooks, kick the bucket, hop the twig, turn up one’s toes [all slang]; die a violent death &c. (be killed) [See Killing].
die for one’s country, make the supreme sacrifice, go West [World War euphemism].
stillborn; mortuary; deadly (killing) [See Killing].
DYING &c. v.; moribund, morient [obs.]; Hippocratic; in articulo [L.], in extremis [L.]; in the -jaws, – agony- of death; going, – off; aux abois [F.]; on one’s -last legs [colloq.], – deathbed; at the point of death, at death’s door, at the last gasp; near one’s end, given up, given over, booked [slang]; with one foot in -, tottering on the brink of- the grave.
- Life -ebbs, – fails, – hangs by a thread.
- One’s days are numbered, one’s hour is come, one’s race is run, one’s doom is sealed.
- Death knocks at the door, Death stares one in the face.
- The breath is out of the body.
- The grave closes over one.
- Sic itur ad astra.—Vergil
- De mortuis nil nisi bonum; dulce et decorum est pro patria mori.—Horace
- Honesta mors turpi vitâ potior.—Tacitus
- In adamantine chains shall death be bound.—Pope
- Mors ultima linea rerum est.—Horace
- Omnia mors œquat.—Claudianus
- Spake the grisly Terror.—Paradise Lost
- The lone couch of his everlasting sleep.—Shelley
- The push of death has swung her into life.—Tagore
- And Death is beautiful as feet of friend Coming with welcome at our journey’s end.—Lowell
- Why do we then shun Death with anxious strife? If Light can thus deceive, wherefore not Life?—J. Blanco White