death knell

See also: death-knell

English

Alternative forms

• death-knell

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /dɛθ nɛl/

• Audio (General Australian):

  (file)

Noun

death knell (plural death knells)

1. The tolling of a bell announcing death.
   • 1872 September – 1873 July, Thomas Hardy, “‘25’”, in A Pair of Blue Eyes. […], volume (please specify |volume=I to III), London: Tinsley Brothers, […], published 1873, →OCLC:

     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.

2. (by extension) A marker, sign or omen foretelling the imminent end, death or destruction of something.
   • 1901, Upton Sinclair, chapter 10, in King Midas‎^[1]:

     The thought was a death-knell to Helen's last hope, and she sank down, quite overcome; […]

   • 2004 June 28, Jamie James, “The Rise of a Musical Superpower”, in Time:

     "It is the death knell of an orchestra if it doesn't have its own home," he says.

   • 2015 February 26, Sophie Gilbert, “Soggy Bottoms and 'Sex Box': The Saucy State of TV's British Imports”, in The Atlantic‎^[2]:

     The dirty little secret at the heart of Sex Box, in fact, was that it was a well-meaning and thoughtful anthropological experiment dressed up as a tawdry, tabloid-bating death knell for standards of common decency.

   • 2018, Michael Cottakis – LSE, “Colliding worlds: Donald Trump and the European Union”, in LSE's blog‎^[3]:

     A rupture would represent a death knell for the West and would harm the US worker.

   • 2025 January 23, Ned Temko, “Is the West’s liberal template broken?”, in The Christian Science Monitor:

     One day in the not too distant future, we may look back on Donald Trump’s return to power as the death knell of “liberal internationalism.”

Translations

tolling of a bell announcing death

• Arabic: صُور m (ṣūr)
• Chinese:

  Mandarin: 喪鐘 / 丧钟 (zh) (sāngzhōng)

• Czech: hrana (cs)
• Finnish: kuolinkellot (fi) pl
• French: glas (fr) m
• German: Totenglocke (de) f, Totengeläut (de) n
• Italian: rintocco funebre m
• Japanese: 弔鐘 (ja) (ちょうしょう, chōshō)
• Polish: dzwon pogrzebowy m
• Russian: погреба́льный звон m (pogrebálʹnyj zvon)
• Swedish: själaringning (sv) c, dödsklocka c

sign foretelling the death or destruction of something

• Finnish: kuolinkellot (fi) pl
• French: glas (fr) m
• German: Todesstoß (de) m
• Polish: ostatnia godzina f
• Russian: погреба́льный звон m (pogrebálʹnyj zvon), стра́шное предзнаменова́ние n (strášnoje predznamenovánije)
• Spanish: sentencia de muerte f
• Swedish: dödsstöt (sv) c

References

• “death knell”, in Lexico, Dictionary.com; Oxford University Press, 2019–2022.