death knell
See also: death-knell
English
Alternative forms
Pronunciation
Audio (AU): (file)
Noun
death knell (plural death knells)
- The tolling of a bell announcing death.
- 1873, Thomas Hardy, chapter 25, in A Pair of Blue Eyes:
- The sound was the stroke of a bell from the tower of East Endelstow Church. . . . The death-knell of an inhabitant of the eastern parish was being tolled.
- 1890, Ambrose Bierce, chapter 1, in An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge:
- Its recurrence was regular, but as slow as the tolling of a death-knell.
- (idiomatic, by extension) A sign or omen foretelling the death or destruction of something.
- 1901, Upton Sinclair, chapter 10, in King Midas:
- The thought was a death-knell to Helen's last hope.
- 2004, Jamie James, "The Rise of a Musical Superpower," Time, 28 June:
- "It is the death knell of an orchestra if it doesn't have its own home," he says.
- 2018, Michael Cottakis – LSE, “Colliding worlds: Donald Trump and the European Union”, in LSE's blog[1]:
- A rupture would represent a death knell for the West and would harm the US worker.
Translations
tolling of a bell announcing death
|
sign foretelling the death or destruction of something
|