death-dealing

adjective

Causing or inflicting death, or capable of doing so; lethal.

“The country was at that time ruled by a death-dealing tyrant.”

Meanings

adjective
  1. Causing or inflicting death, or capable of doing so; lethal.

    The country was at that time ruled by a death-dealing tyrant.

    2 more examples

    The aliens were armed with an array of death-dealing weapons.

    Busuli, the warrior whom he had stalked to the village, told him many of the tribal legends—how, many years before, his people had come many long marches from the north; how once they had been a great and powerful tribe; and how the slave raiders had wrought such havoc among them with their death-dealing guns that they had been reduced to a mere remnant of their former numbers and power.

    1913, Edgar Rice Burroughs, The Return of Tarzan, New York: Ballantine Books, published 1963, page 127
noundeath-dealing (uncountable)
  1. uncountableThe causing of death; murder or killing.

    Sad lays were sung about the beset king, the vicious raids and ravages of Grendel, [...] how he would never parley or make peace with any Dane nor stop his death-dealing nor pay the death-price.

    1999, Seamus Heaney, Beowulf, London: Faber and Faber, page 7
Cite this entry
APA

death-dealing. (n.d.). In WatkinsX Dictionary. Retrieved November 3, 2026, from https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/death-dealing

MLA

“death-dealing.” WatkinsX Dictionary, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/death-dealing. Accessed November 3, 2026.

Chicago

WatkinsX Dictionary, s.v. “death-dealing,” accessed November 3, 2026, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/death-dealing.

Source: death-dealing on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.