living death

American  

noun

1. a completely miserable, joyless existence, experience, situation, etc.; ordeal.

   He found the steaming jungle a living death.

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living death British  

noun

1. a life or lengthy experience of constant misery

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Etymology

Origin of living death

First recorded in 1665–75

Example Sentences

She says for people with loved ones inside a cult, "it's like a living death" - partly because attempts to criticise the group often backfire, leaving them unsure how to act.

From BBC • Apr. 4, 2023

Some people think comas are easy to recover from or—conversely—a living death.

From Scientific American • Oct. 21, 2022

“In the end I realize there is the possibility facing three life sentences, which could become a living death for me,” wrote Hernández, who left office in January at the conclusion of his second term.

From Seattle Times • Apr. 1, 2022

The beautiful queen, whom Marie adores, frames this assignment as a great honor, but the young woman knows she’s “being thrown away like rubbish . . . sent into her living death alone.”

From Washington Post • Aug. 30, 2021

They were afraid of the living death that awaited them in the rice fields, on the great cotton plantations, the sugar plantations, in the deep South—and so ran away.

From "Harriet Tubman: Conductor on the Underground Railroad" by Ann Petry