Word.ws English Dictionary

deaths by a thousand cuts

deaths by a thousand cuts is the plural of death by a thousand cuts.

Meaning of death by a thousand cuts

Noun

death by a thousand cuts (countable and uncountable, plural deaths by a thousand cuts)

  1. Lingchi, a form of execution.
  2. (figuratively) 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

Questions about deaths by a thousand cuts

What is deaths by a thousand cuts the plural of?
Deaths by a thousand cuts is the plural of death by a thousand cuts.

Words near deaths by a thousand cuts in the dictionary

  1. deathrock
  2. deathrocker
  3. deathrockers
  4. deathrun
  5. deaths
  6. deaths by a thousand cuts
  7. deaths by coconut
  8. deaths by cop
  9. deaths by misadventure
  10. deaths by PowerPoint
  11. deaths of despair

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: deaths by a thousand cuts (page history and authors); 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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