lose one's life
English
Verb
- (euphemistic) To die, especially to be killed during involvement in an activity or in some other undertaking.
- 1726, Jonathan Swift, Gulliver's Travels, Part I, Chapter IV
- The people so highly resented this law, that our histories tell us, there have been six rebellions raised on that account; wherein one emperor lost his life.
- 1818, Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley, Frankenstein, Letter 1:
- I have no ambition to lose my life on the post-road between St. Petersburgh and Archangel.
- 1893, William Butler Yeats, "The Friends of the People of Faery" in The Celtic Twilight:
- “[H]is own wife lost her life with an accident that come to a horse that hadn't room to turn right with a harrow between the bush and the wall.”
- 1912, Arthur Conan Doyle, The Lost World, ch. 2:
- “Do you think, Sir, that you could possibly send me on some mission for the paper? . . . anything that had adventure and danger in it. . . .”
- “You seem very anxious to lose your life.”
- 2006 Dec. 30, Unmesh Kher, "By the Numbers: The U.S. Death Toll," Time:
- [E]nemy fighters killed 2,320 of the troops who lost their lives in Iraq through December 2.
- 1726, Jonathan Swift, Gulliver's Travels, Part I, Chapter IV
Synonyms
- See Wikisaurus:die