demise
/dɪˈmaɪz/
More pronunciations (1)Fewer pronunciations
demise noun: the conveyance or transfer of an estate, either in fee for life or for years, most commonly the latter.
Noun
demise (countable and uncountable, plural demises)
- The conveyance or transfer of an estate, either in fee for life or for years, most commonly the latter.
- Transmission by formal act or conveyance to an heir or successor; transference; especially, the transfer or transmission of the crown or royal authority to a successor.
- Immediately upon the Royal Assent being signified to this Act the Instrument of Abdication […] shall have effect, and thereupon His Majesty shall cease to be King and there shall be a demise of the Crown, and accordingly the member of the Royal Family then next in succession to the Throne shall...1936, Parliament of the United Kingdom, “Section 1”, in His Majesty's Declaration of Abdication Act 1936, page 1
- Death; decease.
- Earth looked her loveliest to receive my sweet sister's gentle dust; but all was harsh and sullen as her own nature when Lady Avonleigh's haughty ashes returned to their original element. Immediately after her demise, her son went abroad, and I accompanied him.1834, L[etitia] E[lizabeth] L[andon], chapter XII, in Francesca Carrara. […], volume II, London: Richard Bentley, […], (successor to Henry Colburn), →OCLC, page 124
- Synonyms:
- fatality, quietus, death, end, tomb, celestial transfer, decease, decomposition, defunction, dematerialization
- The end of something, in a negative sense; downfall.
- The lack of funding ultimately led to the project's demise.
- More than a quarter of a century after the fraught events that followed the privatisation of the railway, Corbett has provided a warts and all analysis of what led to the spate of rail disasters in the aftermath of the break-up of British Rail, and (ultimately) to the demise of the company.2026 March 4, Christian Wolmar, “Railtrack: what really happened”, in RAIL, number 1056, page 50
- The atmospheric disintegration of a satellite or satellite component upon re-entering Earth's atmosphere.
- Relocating components to places where they receive more heating effect earlier in the reentry and even triggering a partial break-up of the satellite structure during reentry to aid demise.
Verb
demise (third-person singular simple present demises, present participle demising, simple past and past participle demised)
demise meaning in Hindi, Tamil, Urdu and Bengali
demise in Hindi
- demise
- मरण maraṇ
demise in Tamil
- இறப்பு
demise in Urdu
- demise
- فوتگی fautigī
demise in Bengali
- মৃত্যু, পতন, কোনো কিছুর সমাপ্তি, অবসান
More languagesFewer languages
- demise in Telugu
- మరణము maraṇamu
- demise in Malayalam
- ചരമം, മരണം, മൃത്യൂ, മൃതി
- demise in Kannada
- ನಾಶ, ಅಳಿವು, ಮುಕ್ತಾಯ, ಸಾವು
- demise in Persian
- فوت fovt
Examples of demise in a sentence
- Given his father’s ghastly demise, one would not expect such glee from the ascendant to his throne.
- I watched his demise with my own eyes.
- My neighbour sooled her bull mastiff onto my chihuahua, because she was sick of its yapping and wanted it to meet its demise.
Synonyms of demise
16 more synonymsFewer synonyms
- doom
- exit
- expiration
- liquidation
- mortality
- passing
- repose
- sunset
- the big sleep
- crash
- downfall
- fall
- (the) bane
- (the) end
- defunction
- sleep of the just
Forms of demise
| Noun | |
|---|---|
| plural | demises |
| Verb | |
| third-person singular present | demises |
| present participle | demising |
| past participle | demised |
| past | demised |
Origin of demise
From Middle English demyse, dimise, dimisse, dymyse, from Middle French démise, the feminine singular past participle of démettre (“to put down, relinquish”); from Latin dēmissa, feminine singular of perfect passive participle of dēmittō. The "death" and "end" senses derive by way of euphemism from the legal sense, as a person's death was a common way that the legal demise could be accomplished. The verb is from Middle English dimisen, from the noun.
Words formed from demise
Words that rhyme with demise
48 more rhymesFewer rhymes
- capsize
- comprise
- guise
- revise
- abscise
- agrise
- apprise
- chastise
- despise
- flys
- guys
- lyse
- palatalize
- pies
- prise
- skies
- snies
- sties
- supplies
- surmise
- ties
- tries
- velarize
- aguise
- applies
- authorize
- ayes
- belies
- brise
- buys
- byes
- complies
- cries
- dies
- dries
- dyes
- excise
- eyes
- flies
- flyes
- four eyes
- frankenpies
- fries
- Frise
- hies
- highs
- home fries
- i's
Questions about demise
- What does demise mean?
- Demise means the conveyance or transfer of an estate, either in fee for life or for years, most commonly the latter.
- What is demise in Hindi?
- Demise in Hindi is मरण (maraṇ). See Demise meaning in Hindi.
- What part of speech is demise?
- Demise can be a noun or a verb.
- How do you pronounce demise?
- Demise is pronounced /dɪˈmaɪz/.
- What is the plural of demise?
- The plural of demise is demises.
Words near demise in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: demise (page history and authors); मरण (Hindi) (page history and authors); demise (Tamil Wiktionary) (page history and authors); فوتگی (Urdu) (page history and authors); Demise (Bengali Wiktionary) (page history and authors); మరణము (Telugu) (page history and authors); demise (Olam, E.K. Kurup corpus) (dataset and license); demise (Kannada Wiktionary) (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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Cite this entry: “demise.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/demise. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.