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death mask

American  

noun

  1. a cast taken of a person's face after death.


death mask British  

noun

  1. a cast of a person's face taken shortly after death Compare life mask

"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

Etymology

Origin of death mask

First recorded in 1875–80


Example Sentences

Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.

See Examples For:

King Tut was famously discovered with his face sheathed in a gold death mask that weighed over 20 pounds.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Apr. 16, 2026

His death mask is held at Moyse Hall and Norwich Castle.

From BBC ● Apr. 22, 2025

“She had the death mask of her mother.”

From Los Angeles Times ● Mar. 10, 2023

Stepping back, seemingly mirrored profiles of Cajal himself emerge from dark sides of the drawing, traced from the shadow of his death mask.

From Scientific American ● Aug. 26, 2022

That night, sitting at the foot of my bed, poking her face in so that the gauzy net was molded to her features like an awful death mask, was the black mother cat.

From "How the García Girls Lost Their Accents" by Julia Alvarez

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