Meanings
comparative more death-like · superlative most death-like
- alternativeAlternative form of deathlike.
Some few disclosures, some secret conversations, broken by the hollow cough, by the death-like faintings, passed between them.
1842, [Katherine] Thomson, chapter XVIII, in Widows and Widowers. A Romance of Real Life., volume III, London: Richard Bentley, […], →OCLC, page 3174 more examples
Not the faintest, or most distant sound, of any description whatsoever, reached their attentive listen; not even the reverberated echo of their footsteps struck their directed ear—a soft earth received their cautious tread, and all was a profound and death-like quiet.
1807, [Miss Guion], chapter I, in The Three Germans. Mysteries Exemplified in the Life of Holstein of Lutztein. A German Romance. […], volume I, London: […] J[ames] F[letcher] Hughes, […], →OCLC, pages 5–6“Theresa! (exclaimed the stranger) “is your name Theresa? asked she, a death-like paleness at the same time overspreading her countenance.
1808 November 12, “The Mysterious Recluse”, in The Lady’s Weekly Miscellany, volume VIII, number 3, New York, N.Y., page 34, column 2As this was a favourite meal with Mrs. Jennings, it lasted a considerable time, and they were just setting themselves, after it, round the common working table, when a letter was delivered to Marianne, which she eagerly caught from the servant, and, turning of a death-like paleness, instantly ran out of the room.
1811, [Jane Austen], chapter VII, in Sense and Sensibility […], volume II, London: […] C[harles] Roworth, […], and published by T[homas] Egerton, […], →OCLC, pages 101–102Mother Earth, at their devastating touch, falls into a death-like swoon—her green mantle overlaid by a dust-coloured shroud.
1924, Victor Branford, Living Religions: A Plea for the Larger Modernism, page 47
Cite this entry
death-like. (n.d.). In WatkinsX Dictionary. Retrieved November 3, 2026, from https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/death-like
“death-like.” WatkinsX Dictionary, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/death-like. Accessed November 3, 2026.
WatkinsX Dictionary, s.v. “death-like,” accessed November 3, 2026, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/death-like.
Source: death-like on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.