sudden death

American  

noun

Sports.

1. an overtime period in which a tied contest is won and play is stopped immediately after one of the contestants scores, as in football, or goes ahead, as in golf.

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sudden death British  

noun

1. (in sports, etc) an extra game or contest to decide the winner of a tied competition

2. an unexpected or quick death

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Other Word Forms

• sudden-death adjective

Etymology

Origin of sudden death

First recorded in 1825–35

Example Sentences

Dickens’s readers balk at his use of caricature and coincidence, but as Mr. Keefe shows, both are appropriate for a money-mad city full of affluence and anonymity, weird proximities and sudden death.

From The Wall Street Journal • Apr. 10, 2026

His sudden death has devastated his family and fellow car enthusiasts.

From Los Angeles Times • Apr. 9, 2026

When Sangha heard news reports about Perry's sudden death, she tried to cover her tracks.

From Barron's • Apr. 8, 2026

When Rupert’s children watched its too-close-for-comfort version of the chaos following Logan Roy’s sudden death, they leapt to nail down their family’s succession plan before it was too late.

From Salon • Mar. 14, 2026

As a child, Turner had once tried to persuade himself that preventing his mother’s sudden death by avoiding the pavement cracks outside his school playground was a nonsense.

From "Atonement" by Ian McEwan