Word.ws English Dictionary

did or died

did or died is the simple past of do or die.

Meaning of do or die

Verb

do or die (third-person singular simple present does or dies, present participle doing or dying, simple past did or died, past participle done or died)

  1. (idiomatic) To act with sufficient urgency to result in either immediate success or immediate failure.
    • Emanuel: Bless us, dear Fortune! / Armusia: Let us be worthy of it in our courage, and Fortune must befriend us. Come, all sever; but keep still within sight: when the flame rises let's meet, and either do or die.1621 (first literary attestation), John Fletcher, The Island Princess act 2.scene 2

See all 2 meanings of do or die

Questions about did or died

What is did or died the simple past of?
Did or died is the simple past of do or die.

Words near did or died in the dictionary

  1. did one's sums
  2. did one's thing
  3. did one's utmost
  4. did one's worst
  5. did oneself a mischief
  6. did or died
  7. did out
  8. did out of
  9. did over
  10. did porridge
  11. did right by

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: did or died (page history and authors); do or die (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.

Last updated:

Cite this entry: “did or died.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/did_or_died. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.