near-death experience

American

[neer-deth ik-speer-ee-uhns] / ˈnɪərˈdɛθ ɪkˌspɪər i əns /

a sensation or vision, as of the afterlife, reported by a person who has come close to death. nde, NDE

near-death experience British

noun

NDE. an experience, instances of which have been widely reported, in which a person near death is apparently outside his body and aware of it and the attendant circumstances as separate from him

"Collins English Dictionary — Complete & Unabridged" 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012

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near-death experience

In 2024, Rushdie published a memoir recounting the near-death experience called "Knife," in which he has an imagined conversation with Matar.

From Barron's ● Jul. 30, 2026

A near-death experience with malaria at age 29 put Musk on a path looking for bigger meaning in life.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Jun. 13, 2026

When did you realize you had the courage to write about this near-death experience?

From Los Angeles Times ● Feb. 13, 2026

The prime minister has had a political near-death experience – and survived, for now at least.

From BBC ● Feb. 9, 2026

In fact, it wasn’t until she’d reviewed the video for her report that she was certain the whole thing wasn’t a hallucination brought on by a near-death experience.

From "Artemis Fowl" by Eoin Colfer

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Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023