deathbeds

Noun

deathbed (plural deathbeds)

1. The bed on which someone dies.
   • He was once on his way to an old woman, who was on her death-bed and who had led a wicked life.1886, Peter Christen Asbjø￵rnsen, translated by H.L. Brækstad, Folk and Fairy Tales, page 254
2. The last hours before death.
3. A grave; the site of a burial or entombment.
   • “Will you ask our oldest warriors to build me a barrow? Ask them to climb this headland and build me a death pile high on its top. Let my deathbed rise high above Hronesnesse.”1961, Norma Lorre Goodrich, “Beowulf”, in The Medieval Myths, New York: The New American Library, page 47