Word.ws English Dictionary

like grim death

like grim death prepositional phrase: with savage determination or persistence.

Prepositional phrase

  1. (simile) With savage determination or persistence.
    • I hung onto the rope like grim death.
    • I crouched low and held on like grim death to a little rail near me.1944 May and June, “When the Circle was Steam Operated”, in Railway Magazine, page 133

Origin of like grim death

Association between grim and death arose at least by 1590. More information at Grim Reaper.

Questions about like grim death

What does like grim death mean?
Like grim death means with savage determination or persistence.
What part of speech is like grim death?
Like grim death is a prepositional phrase.

Words near like grim death in the dictionary

  1. like fudge
  2. like fun
  3. like fury
  4. like gangbusters
  5. like grease through a goose
  6. like grim death
  7. like heck
  8. like hell
  9. like hey-go-mad
  10. like hot cakes
  11. like I care

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: like grim 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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