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near-death experience

near-death experience noun: a sensation of detachment from one's body, the presence of a tunnel of light, the apparent viewing of one's own body from on high, and similar manifestations, experienced by people whose heart and brain have temporarily ceased to function.

Noun

near-death experience (plural near-death experiences)

  1. A sensation of detachment from one's body, the presence of a tunnel of light, the apparent viewing of one's own body from on high, and similar manifestations, experienced by people whose heart and brain have temporarily ceased to function.
    • Everybody has the same story of the near-death experience—my entire life flashed in front of me, the white light and all that—but no one really knows it.1995 November 26, Laura Mansnerus, quoting Timothy Leary, “At Death's Door, the Message Is Tune In, Turn On, Drop In”, in The New York Times, →ISSN
    Synonyms:
    NDE

Synonyms of near-death experience

Forms of near-death experience

pluralnear-death experiences
alternative formnear death experience

Origin of near-death experience

Coined by John C. Lilly in 1972, and popularized by Raymond Moody from 1975.

Words formed from near-death experience

Questions about near-death experience

What does near-death experience mean?
Near-death experience means a sensation of detachment from one's body, the presence of a tunnel of light, the apparent viewing of one's own body from on high, and similar manifestations, experienced by people whose heart and brain have temporarily ceased to function.
What part of speech is near-death experience?
Near-death experience is a noun.
What is the plural of near-death experience?
The plural of near-death experience is near-death experiences.

Words near near-death experience in the dictionary

  1. near vision
  2. near-abroad
  3. near-antonym
  4. near-antonyms
  5. near-by
  6. near-death experience
  7. near-death experiences
  8. near-earth
  9. near-Earth comet
  10. near-Earth comets
  11. near-Earth object

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: near-death experience (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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