Word.ws English Dictionary

life-and-death

life-and-death is the alternative form of life-or-death.

Meaning of life-or-death

Adjective

life-or-death (not comparable)

  1. Of critical importance to the survival of a living organism.
    • Good camoflouge is life or death for many animals in the wild.
  2. Having death as a possible or even likely outcome; perilous.
    • Ascending Mount Everest can be life or death for an inexperienced climber.
  3. (idiomatic) Of critical importance to the success of a particular endeavor.
    • Obtaining financing was a life-or-death matter for the research.

Questions about life-and-death

What is life-and-death the alternative form of?
Life-and-death is the alternative form of life-or-death.

Words near life-and-death in the dictionary

  1. life's too short
  2. life's work
  3. life's works
  4. life, prosperity, health
  5. life-affirming
  6. life-and-death
  7. life-arrow
  8. life-arrows
  9. life-bearing
  10. life-blood
  11. life-buoy

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: life-and-death (page history and authors); life-or-death (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: “life-and-death.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/life-and-death. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.