death-in-lifen.
/dɛθɪnˈlʌɪf/, U.S. /ˌdɛθɪnˈlaɪf/ Chiefly literary.
A life that lacks any satisfaction or purpose; a living death; (also) a condition of being or seeming neither dead nor alive.
ΘΚΠ
the mind > emotion > suffering > misery > [noun] > not deserving name of life
living deatha1530
death-in-life1577
1577 T. Kendall Trifles f. 30, in tr. Politianus et al. Flowers of Epigrammes The life he lidve [sic], was sure no life, but euen a death in life.
1655 Duchess of Newcastle Worlds Olio iii. i. f. 156 Hope is the Life of Mans Thoughts, and the Ground of his Actions;..the want of it is a Death in Life.
1823 M. W. Shelley Valperga I. xii. 241 If, united to you, such an event were to ensue, in that moment I must die, or live a death in life.
1864 Ld. Tennyson Enoch Arden in Enoch Arden, etc. 31 One..Lay lingering out a three-years' death-in-life.
1934 ‘G. Orwell’ Burmese Days xxiv. 358 The sort of horrible death-in-life! The decay, the loneliness.
1955 E. Bowen World of Love vi. 115 They conceived of no death, least of all death-in-life.
2009 F. McLynn Marcus Aurelius (2010) xviii. 459 Slaves and the other wretched of the Earth were already living a death-in-life.
Compounds
General attributive, as death-in-life existence, death-in-life state, etc.
ΚΠ
1847 Law Mag. 7 182 The ‘death in life’ aspect of all of them was still more painful than that of the spellbound workers in the hall below.
1850 Fraser's Mag. Dec. 628/2 The alligators..remain concealed and comfortable, in the sort of death-in-life state of hybernation.
1907 Folk-lore June 228 A seven years' death-in-life trance.
1937 M. M. Kaplan Meaning of God in Mod. Jewish Relig. iii. 139 They are compelled to drag out a sort of death-in-life existence.
2011 S. Jacoby Never say Die (2012) v. 100 Alzheimer's imposes not ‘a spell’ of suffering but a life sentence—or, rather, a death-in-life sentence.
This entry has been updated (OED Third Edition, March 2014; most recently modified version published online March 2022).
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