Word.ws English Dictionary

life or death

life or 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 or death

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

Words near life or death in the dictionary

  1. life of O'Reilly
  2. life of Reilly
  3. life of Riley
  4. life of the party
  5. life off
  6. life or death
  7. life partner
  8. life partners
  9. life path
  10. life paths
  11. life peer

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: life or 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 or death.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/life_or_death. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.