life-in-deathn.
/lʌɪfɪnˈdɛθ/, U.S. /ˌlaɪfɪnˈdɛθ/ Chiefly literary.
A condition of being or seeming to be neither alive nor dead, a phantom state between life and death; (in extended use) something having the form or appearance of the supernatural, an apparition, a spectre.In quot. 1593: life characterized by misery or meaninglessness; cf. death-in-life n.
ΘΚΠ
the world > the supernatural > supernatural being > ghost or phantom > [noun]
soulOE
huea1000
ghostOE
fantasyc1325
spiritc1350
phantomc1384
phantasmc1430
haunterc1440
shadowa1464
appearance1488
wraith1513
hag1538
spoorn1584
vizarda1591
life-in-death1593
phantasma1598
umbra1601
larve1603
spectre1605
spectrum1611
apparitiona1616
shadea1616
shapea1616
showa1616
idolum1619
larva1651
white hat?1693
zumbi1704
jumbie1764
duppy1774
waff1777
zombie1788
Wild Huntsman1796
spook1801
ghostie1810
hantua1811
preta1811
bodach1814
revenant1823
death-fetch1826
sowlth1829
haunt1843
night-bat1847
spectrality1850
thivish1852
beastie1867
ghost soul1869
barrow-wight1891
resurrect1892
waft1897
churel1901
comeback1908
the world > the supernatural > supernatural being > ghost or phantom > [noun] > state of being
ghostliness1657
ghostism1782
ghostship1796
ghosthood1842
ghostdom1846
spectrality1850
ghostiness1874
spectralness1892
life-in-death1901
1593 W. Shakespeare Venus & Adonis sig. Dv For I haue heard, it [sc. love] is a life in death . View more context for this quotation
1817 S. T. Coleridge Anc. Mariner (rev. ed.) iii, in Sibylline Leaves 14 Her skin was as white as leprosy, The Night-Mair Life-in-Death was she, Who thicks man's blood with cold.
1901 Daily Chron. 27 Dec. 3/1 They lie in a sort of life-in-death until the touch of a mighty hand grants them their full development.
1925 R. W. Ketton-Cremer in Oxf. Poetry 22 From something not of earth, nor quite of Death—Some phantom Life-in-Death.
1932 W. B. Yeats Words for Music 1 I hail the Superhuman; I call it Death-in-Life and Life-in-Death.
2002 Chinese Lit. 24 143 The corpse motif is linked to twelve ‘corpses as living deities’ and to the concepts of life-in-death and immortality.
This entry has been updated (OED Third Edition, September 2009; most recently modified version published online March 2022).
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n.1593