at death's door
Proposed by a contributor, not yet supported by evidence.
Meaning · English
Very ill or close to dying
Literally: standing at the entrance of death
Where it’s used:
Used
Widespread English
Examples
‘ He really was at death's door ’, recalled David, ‘ He'd jumped nineteen clear rounds in a row, beginning with three brilliant ones in the Victor Ludorum at Wembley.
For several days he was at death's door, and a grave had been kept ready in case the worst happened.
British National Corpus sentence via the MAGPIE corpus (CC BY 4.0, retrieved 2026-07-30)
Sources & notes
Listed in Wiktionary’s “English idioms” category (retrieved 2026-07-29); definition pending editorial review. Definition drafted by AI (@cf/meta/llama-3.3-70b-instruct-fp8-fast) and auto-approved by rule on 2026-07-30; pending editor spot-check.
Equivalents & related
Common questions
What does “at death's door” mean?
Very ill or close to dying Literally: standing at the entrance of death
Is “at death's door” formal or informal?
No register label has been reviewed yet — treat it as neutral and check the usage notes above.
What is the closest equivalent?
“ngắc ngoải” (Tiếng Việt) — near equivalent.