death sentence

From Wiktionary, the free dictionary
Jump to navigation Jump to search

English[edit]

Noun[edit]

death sentence (plural death sentences)

  1. (law) A decree that someone be put to death as a punishment for a crime; a sentence of execution.
    • 2019 May 12, Alex McLevy, “Westeros faces a disastrous final battle on the penultimate Game of Thrones (newbies)”, in The A.V. Club[1]:
      Tyrion’s tears contain the symbolic weight of his whole life; he wouldn’t be here if not for Jaime, as he admits, and his last hope is to give the man who risked everything to help him survive the same chance. Tyrion knows it’s a death sentence from Daenerys to betray her in this way, but he no longer cares.
    • 1943 November – 1944 February (date written; published 1945 August 17), George Orwell [pseudonym; Eric Arthur Blair], Animal Farm [], London: Secker & Warburg, published May 1962, →OCLC:
      Comrades, here and now I pronounce the death sentence upon Snowball.
  2. (figurative) Anything that spells death.
    Having the Huntington's gene is a death sentence.

Derived terms[edit]

Translations[edit]