Word.ws English Dictionary

at death's door

at death's door prepositional phrase: about to die; in a life-threatening state of health.

Prepositional phrase

  1. (idiomatic) About to die; in a life-threatening state of health.
    • The minstrel woman who left the Castle yesterday has spread the report everywhere, that the Duke of Rothsay is murdered, or at death's door.1828 May 15, [Walter Scott], chapter IX, in Chronicles of the Canongate. Second Series. […] (The Fair Maid of Perth), volume III, Edinburgh: […] [Ballantyne and Co.] for Cadell and Co.; London...
    • One of my Polynesian sailors lay at death's door with blackwater fever.1913 August, Jack London, chapter XXXII, in John Barleycorn, New York, N.Y.: The Century Co., →OCLC, page 290

Adjective capitalized: at Death's door

at Death's door (not comparable)

  1. (alternative) Alternative spelling of at death's door.

Examples of at death's door in a sentence

  • Mott-Smith was literally at death's door in mid-game.1961 May, “Postal Games”, in Chess Review:
  • Clearly, a business with $26 billion in cash reserves isn't exactly at death's door.2008 June 29, Josh Quittner, “Bill Gates: PC Genius, Internet Fool”, in Time:

Synonyms of at death's door

Forms of at death's door

alternative format Death's door

Questions about at death's door

What does at death's door mean?
At death's door means about to die; in a life-threatening state of health.
How do you use at death's door in a sentence?
Mott-Smith was literally at death's door in mid-game.
What part of speech is at death's door?
At death's door can be a prepositional phrase or an adjective.

Words near at death's door in the dictionary

  1. at command
  2. at cost
  3. at cross-purposes
  4. at daggers drawn
  5. at dark
  6. at death's door
  7. at each other's throats
  8. at ease
  9. at every turn
  10. at fault
  11. at first

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: at death's door (page history and authors); at Death's door (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: en-au-at death's door.ogg.

Cite this entry: “at death's door.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/at_death%27s_door. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.