die
Language: English
Part of speech: verb
Pronunciation: enpr: dī
ipa: /daɪ/
ipa: [daj]
ipa: [dɑj]
ipa: [dɑj]
ipa: [daj]
note: Ottawa Valley
ipa: [dəj]
rhymes: -aɪ
homophone: dye
homophone: Di
homophone: Dai
homophone: daye
Forms: form: dies
form: dying
form: died
form: died
form: no-table-tags
form: glossary
form: die
form: die
form: died
form: die
form: diest
form: died
form: diedst
form: dies
form: dieth
form: died
form: die
form: died
form: die
form: died
form: die
form: -
form: dying
form: died
form: dye
Etymology: From Middle English deyen, from Old English *dīeġan and Old Norse deyja, both from Proto-Germanic *dawjaną (“to die”). Displaced native Old English sweltan, whence Modern English swelt, and Old English steorfan, whence modern starve.
Senses: examples: text: Returne with ſpeed, time paſſeth ſwift away,
Our life is fraile, and we may dye to day.
ref: c. 1587–1588 (date written), [Christopher Marlowe], Tamburlaine the Great. […] The First Part […], 2nd edition, part 1, London: […] [R. Robinson for] Richard Iones, […], published 1592, →OCLC; reprinted as Tamburlaine the Great (A Scolar Press Facsimile), Menston, Yorkshire; London: Scolar Press, 1973, →ISBN, Act I, scene i:
text: The cheeks drop in; the body bows;
Man dies: nor is there hope in dust: […]
ref: 1850, [Alfred, Lord Tennyson], “Canto XXXV”, in In Memoriam, London: Edward Moxon, […], →OCLC, page 54:
glosses: To stop living; to become dead; to undergo death.
examples: text: He died of malaria.
text: "What did she die of, Work'us?" said Noah.
"Of a broken heart, some of our old nurses told me," replied Oliver[…].
ref: 1838, Boz [pseudonym; Charles Dickens], chapter 6, in Oliver Twist; or, The Parish Boy’s Progress. […], volume (please specify |volume=I, II, or III), London: Richard Bentley, […], →OCLC:
text: In 1971 or 72, Mom's sister Carolyn Weimer died of breast cancer.
ref: 2000, Stephen King, On Writing, Pocket Books, published 2002, page 85:
glosses: To stop living; to become dead; to undergo death.
followed by of as an indication of direct cause; general use
examples: text: He died from heart failure.
text: She lived several weeks; but afterwards she died from epilepsy, to which malady she had been previously subject.
ref: 1865 March 4, British Medical Journal, page 213:
text: "Or all of them will die from the plague. Even if most of the candidates succumb […]"
ref: 2007, Frank Herbert, Kevin J. Anderson, Sandworms of Dune, Tor, published 2007, page 191:
glosses: To stop living; to become dead; to undergo death.
followed by from as an indication of direct cause; general use, though somewhat more common in the context of medicine or the sciences
examples: text: He died for the one he loved.
text: Englishmen are dying for England, Americans are dying for America, Germans are dying for Germany, Russians are dying for Russia. There are now fifty or sixty countries fighting in this war.
ref: 1961, Joseph Heller, Catch-22, Simon & Schuster, published 1999, page 232:
text: Less than three days later, Johnson lapsed into a coma in his jail cell and died for lack of insulin.
ref: 2003, Tara Herivel, Paul Wright, editors, Prison Nation, Routledge, page 187:
glosses: To stop living; to become dead; to undergo death.
followed by for; often expressing wider contextual motivations, though sometimes indicating direct causes
examples: text: Therefore let Benedicke like covered fire, / Consume away in sighes, waste inwardly: / It were a better death, to die with mockes, / Which is as bad as die with tickling.
ref: 1598–1599 (first performance), William Shakespeare, “Much Adoe about Nothing”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act III, scene i]:
text: And there were some who died with fevers, which at some seasons of the year was very frequent in the land.
ref: 1830, Joseph Smith, The Book of Mormon, Richards, published 1854, page 337:
glosses: To stop living; to become dead; to undergo death.
followed by with as an indication of direct cause
examples: text: I can't believe I just died to a turret!
text: Dr Thomas concluded she had died to a blow to the head, which led to a bleed on the brain, probably a fall and had hit her head hard on the wooden bedpost, as there was blood on the bedpost.
ref: 2014, S. J. Groves, The Darker Side to Dr Carter, page 437:
glosses: To stop living; to become dead; to undergo death.
followed by to as an indication of direct cause (like from)
examples: text: She died with dignity.
glosses: To stop living; to become dead; to undergo death.
followed by with as an indication of manner
qualifier: still current
examples: text: Will I die a happy man?
glosses: To stop living; to become dead; to undergo death.
to die in a certain form.
raw_tags: in bare form
examples: text: He died a hero's death.
text: They died a thousand deaths.
text: […] he chose instead to suffer even greater personal pain, with unimaginable fortitude and resolve, albeit for a shorter time. Thus he died a small death, in order to benefit the living. Similarly, a small and voluntary death was died by Socrates.
ref: 2019, Lou Marinoff, On Human Conflict: The Philosophical Foundations of War and Peace, Rowman & Littlefield, →ISBN, page 452:
glosses: To (stop living and) undergo (a specified death).
examples: text: Whenever my brother dies, he ragequits.
text: Of course, Nazis are not present in this game. Instead, we have animals that will try to cover you with dirt. As soon as you get too dirty, you will die.
ref: 1995, “Slobzone”, in Coming Soon! magazine (video game review):
text: Oh look, I just died.[…]I missed that jump again! That was dumb! Hey, I just died on the same freakin' Zinger.
ref: 2009, Brian Sulpher, 9:15–9:30 from the start, in Onto Doom And Gloom (video game playthrough), via youtube:
topics: video-games
glosses: To lose or be eliminated from a game, particularly with a deathlike animation.
examples: text: I'm dying for a packet of crisps.
text: I'm dying for a piss.
text: Yes, and his ill conditions; and in despite of all, dies for him.
ref: 1598–1599 (first performance), William Shakespeare, “Much Adoe about Nothing”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act III, scene ii]:
text: I could see that he was dying, dying for a cigarette, dying for a fix maybe, dying for a little bit of freedom, but trapped in a hospital bed and a sick body.
ref: 2004, Paul Joseph Draus, Consumed in the city: observing tuberculosis at century's end, page 168:
glosses: To yearn intensely.
examples: text: The day our sister eloped, she died to our mother.
text: "My dad […] beat us until we couldn't sit down." […] "What about your mother?" […] "She's alive. […] My aunt visits her once a year, but I don't ask about my mother. She died to me the day she chose my father over protecting us." Luke's voice hitched with emotion.
ref: 2015, Emily Duvall, Inclusions, page 150:
text: "You haven't been my son since you were ten years old. That boy died to me the day he ran away. I don't know you. You are merely a shell that resembles someone I used to know, but you are dead to me. You are the bringer of pain and death. Leave me be. Leave me with my son, Jyosh." "Mother..." Barlun pleaded.
ref: 2017, Mike Hoornstra, Descent into the Maelstrom, page 366:
glosses: To be or become hated or utterly ignored or cut off, as if dead.
examples: text: He died a little inside each time she refused to speak to him.
text: Do you know that I went down / To the ground / Landed on both my broken-hearted knees... / […]I didn't even cry / 'Cause pieces of me had already died
ref: 2011, Ingrid Michaelson, “Ghost”, in Human Again:
text: Made it out alive, but I think I lost it
Said that I was fine, said it from the coffin
Remember how I died when you started walking?
That's my life, that's my life
ref: 2024, Gracie Abrams, Audrey Hobert, “That's So True”, in The Secret of Us, performed by Gracie Abrams:
glosses: To become spiritually dead; to lose hope.
examples: text: If anyone sees me wearing this ridiculous outfit, I'll die.
glosses: To be mortified or shocked by a situation.
examples: text: When I found out my two favorite musicians would be recording an album together, I literally planned my own funeral arrangements and died.
text: I literally died when I saw that.
ref: 1976, an anchorman on Channel Five in California, quoted in Journal and Newsletter [of the] California Classical Association, Northern Section
glosses: To be so overcome with emotion or laughter as to be incapacitated.
examples: text: My car died in the middle of the freeway this morning.
text: Sorry I couldn't call you. My phone died.
text: My battery died and my charger was at home.
glosses: To stop working; to break down or otherwise lose "vitality".
raw_tags: of a machine
glosses: To abort, to terminate (as an error condition).
raw_tags: of a computer program
examples: text: The proposed gas tax died after the powerful rural senator refused to let it out of committee.
glosses: To expire at the end of the session of a legislature without having been brought to a vote.
raw_tags: of a legislative bill or resolution
examples: text: letting the secret die within his own breast
ref: 1714 September 26 (Gregorian calendar), [Joseph Addison; Richard Steele et al.], “WEDNESDAY, September 15, 1714”, in The Spectator, number 594; republished in Alexander Chalmers, editor, The Spectator; a New Edition, […], volume VI, New York, N.Y.: D[aniel] Appleton & Company, 1853, →OCLC:
text: Great deeds cannot die.
ref: 1847, Alfred Tennyson, “(please specify the page number, or |part=Prologue, I to VII, or conclusion)”, in The Princess: A Medley, London: Edward Moxon, […], →OCLC:
text: Through all the Worlds are sounds, the noises of moving, and the echoes of voices and song; but upon the River is no sound ever heard, for there all echoes die.
ref: 1905, Lord Dunsany [i.e., Edward Plunkett, 18th Baron of Dunsany], The Gods of Pegāna, London: [Charles] Elkin Mathews, […], →OCLC, page 88:
glosses: To perish; to cease to exist; to become lost or extinct.
examples: text: But it came to passe in the morning, when the wine was gone out of Nabal, and his wife had told him these things, that his heart died within him, and he became as a stone.
ref: 1611, The Holy Bible, […] (King James Version), London: […] Robert Barker, […], →OCLC, 1 Samuel 25:37:
text: When the truth is found to be lies / And all the joy within you dies / Don't you want somebody to love? / Don't you need somebody to love?
ref: 1965, Darby Slick, “Somebody to Love”, in Surrealistic Pillow, performed by Jefferson Airplane, published 1967:
glosses: To sink; to faint; to pine; to languish, with weakness, discouragement, love, etc.
examples: text: to die to pleasure or to sin
glosses: To become indifferent; to cease to be subject.
raw_tags: with "to"
topics: architecture
glosses: To disappear gradually in another surface, as where mouldings are lost in a sloped or curved face.
glosses: To become vapid, flat, or spiritless, as liquor.
examples: text: Then there was that time I died onstage in Montreal...
glosses: To fail to evoke laughter from the audience.
raw_tags: of a stand-up comedian or a joke
Synonyms: sense: to stop living
word: assume room temperature
sense: to stop living
word: bite the dust
sense: to stop living
word: bite the big one
sense: to stop living
word: buy the farm
sense: to stop living
word: check out
sense: to stop living
word: code
sense: to stop living
word: cross over
sense: to stop living
word: cross the river
sense: to stop living
word: decompose
sense: to stop living
word: dematerialize
sense: to stop living
word: expire
sense: to stop living
word: succumb
sense: to stop living
word: give up the ghost
sense: to stop living
word: pass
sense: to stop living
word: pass away
sense: to stop living
word: pass on
sense: to stop living
word: be no more
sense: to stop living
word: meet one's maker
sense: to stop living
word: be a stiff
sense: to stop living
word: push up the daisies
sense: to stop living
word: hop off the twig
sense: to stop living
word: kick the bucket
sense: to stop living
word: shuffle off this mortal coil
sense: to stop living
word: join the choir invisible
word: auger in
word: be called home
word: be gathered to one's fathers
topics: biblical
religion
lifestyle
word: be with Jesus
word: be with the Lord
word: bite the biscuit
word: buy it
word: cark it
word: cash in
word: cash in one's chips
word: close one's eyes for the last time
word: conk out
word: croak
word: cross rainbow bridge
word: cross the Great Divide
word: cross the Styx
word: decease
word: depart
word: disincarnate
word: draw one's last breath
word: drop off the hooks
word: exit
word: flatline
word: forfare
word: get to be like the one
word: give one's all
word: go for a burton
word: go gentle into that good night
word: go out
word: go over to the majority
word: go the way of all flesh
word: go the way of the dinosaurs
word: go the way of the dodo
word: go the way of the dodo bird
word: go to glory
word: go to one's reward
word: go west
word: hand in one's checks
word: hand in one's dinner pail
word: hop the twig
word: keel over
word: kick off
word: knock off
word: liquidate
word: lose my life for Jesus Christ
word: lose the number of one's mess
word: meet one's doom
word: meet one's end
word: pass in one's checks
word: pass in one's marble
word: pass over
word: pass the river
word: pay nature's debt
word: pay the debt of nature
word: peg out
word: perish
word: pop off
word: pop one's clogs
word: sink
word: sleep with one's fathers
word: slip away
word: snuff it
word: take a dirt nap
word: turn up one's toes
word: yield up the ghost
Hyponyms: word: bleed out
word: drown
word: overdose
word: sleep with the fishes
word: stifle
word: suffocate
Derived terms: be dying for
cross my heart and hope to die
die a death
die and go to heaven
die a thousand deaths
die-away
die away
die back
die-die
die down
die hard
die-hard
diehard
die how one lived
die-in
die in a fire
die in harness
die in one's shoes
die in the arse
die in the ass
die in the last ditch
die just how one lived
die just like one lived
die just the way one lived
die laughing
die laughter
die liao
die like flies
die like one lived
die off
die-off
die of laughter
die on
die on one's arse
die on the vine
die out
die prematurely
die roaring
die roaring for a priest
die the way one lived
dieversity
do-or-die
do or die
either do or die
hide-and-die syndrome
hill to die on
hydrate or diedrate
I'm dying
I would rather die
laugh die me
life's a bitch and then you die
live and die by
never say die
never-say-die
old habits die hard
only the good die young
redie
ride-or-die
ride or die
right to die
Naples and die
talk and die syndrome
the good die young
today is a good day to die
to die for
undie
wake up and die right
what did your last slave die of
Related terms: word: dead
word: death
word: buried
word: bury
word: kill
word: List of expressions related to death