death by a thousand cuts
death by a thousand cuts noun: lingchi, a form of execution.
Noun
death by a thousand cuts (countable and uncountable, plural deaths by a thousand cuts)
- Lingchi, a form of execution.
- A gradual decline or failure as the result of many minor mishaps.
- The steelmaker warned that moving production overseas would be an inevitable consequence. One executive said: “This is death by a thousand cuts.”2010 April 10, Tim Webb, “Heavy industry claims carbon emission targets are ‘death by a thousand cuts‘”, in The Guardian, archived from the original on 21 Jan 2025
- There are only months left to save our railway from a vicious downward spiral. Do we choose reform of the workforce or death by a thousand cuts? Who will stand up and speak for the industry to avoid such a massive own goal?2022 January 12, Sir Michael Holden, “Reform of the workforce or death by a thousand cuts?”, in RAIL, number 948, page 25
Forms of death by a thousand cuts
| plural | deaths by a thousand cuts |
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Words formed from death by a thousand cuts
Questions about death by a thousand cuts
- What does death by a thousand cuts mean?
- Death by a thousand cuts means lingchi, a form of execution.
- What part of speech is death by a thousand cuts?
- Death by a thousand cuts is a noun.
- What is the plural of death by a thousand cuts?
- The plural of death by a thousand cuts is deaths by a thousand cuts.
Words near death by a thousand cuts in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: death by a thousand cuts (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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