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

But things accelerated more quickly than some might have anticipated, when in February we reported on the prime minister's political near-death experience, when the Scottish Labour leader, Anas Sarwar, publicly called for him to go.

From BBC ● Jun. 26, 2026

Indeed, after the industry’s near-death experience during the pandemic, they’ve become more popular than ever.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Jan. 30, 2026

His online footprint ultimately led police to his hospital bedside in Glasgow, where he was recovering from a genuine near-death experience with Covid.

From BBC ● Aug. 11, 2025

Yu traces its beginnings to a near-death experience he had as a child growing up in rural China.

From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 10, 2025

Leo had heard all about his near-death experience in the nymphaeum in Rome with Jason and Piper.

From "Blood of Olympus" by Rick Riordan

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