at death's door

Idioms  

1. On the point of dying, very ill, as in Whenever she had a bad cold she acted as though she were at death's door. The association of death with an entry way was first made in English in the late 1300s, and the phrase itself dates from the mid-1500s. Today it is often used as an exaggeration of ill health.

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Example Sentences

See Examples For:

at death's door

The movies have ostensibly been at death’s door at least since the shift to sync sound, which isn’t to undersell the industry’s business woes.

From New York Times ● Dec. 1, 2023

There was something different happening here: the ex-con at death’s door coming clean with his regrets.

From Seattle Times ● Sep. 8, 2021

Premature grief is the specter hovering over war-torn Yemen’s famine cases — malnourished children at death’s door — in Skye Fitzgerald’s latest dispatch from the Middle East, “Hunger Ward.”

From Los Angeles Times ● Apr. 1, 2021

Mrs Cromie described being at "death's door" waiting for a suitable liver and said it was "horrible" having to say goodbye to Mrs Mullan in Belfast's Royal Victoria Hospital.

From BBC ● May 20, 2019

Rumors had appeared in newspapers that I was at death’s door and she had become quite concerned.

From "Long Walk to Freedom" by Nelson Mandela

Related Words

• decaying
• doomed
• fading
• moribund