deathy

English

Etymology

From death +‎ -y.

Pronunciation

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Adjective

deathy (comparative more deathy, superlative most deathy)

1. (archaic, poetic) Relating to death.
   • 1829, Robert Southey, A Tale of Paraguay, Canto IV, XXXVIII, The Poetical Works of Robert Southey, page 569,

     The sunny hue that tinged her cheek was gone, / A deathy paleness settled in its stead;

   • 1836, Thomas Chandler Haliburton, The Clockmaker: Or, The Sayings and Doings of Samuel Slick of Slickville, First Series, published 1840, page 83:

     The deathy stillness of a town, and the barred windows, and shut shops, and empty streets, and great long lines of big brick buildins,^[sic] look melancholy.

   • 1869 February, Justin McCarthy, “My Enemy's Daughter”, in Mary Elizabeth Braddon, editor, Belgravia, volume 7, page 186:

     I heard a lady near whom I happened to sit one evening in a river-steamer describe it to a companion, when its swampy flats came into sight, as "a deathy place." The phrase was picturesque, effective and very appropriate. It did look a deathy place; but it had the advantages — to me supreme — of being very cheap, and of having easy access to the river, and therefore to town.

2. Misspelling of deathly.

Derived terms

• deathiness

 

Anagrams

• the day, they'da