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View synonyms for

death knell

noun

  1. a harbinger of the end, death, or destruction of something.


death knell

noun

  1. something that heralds death or destruction
  2. a bell rung to announce a death
“Collins English Dictionary — Complete & Unabridged†2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012
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Idioms and Phrases

Something that indicates impending failure, as in His low scores sounded the death knell for his ambitions . The noun knell , used for the ringing of a bell since at least a.d. 1000, is rarely heard today except in this figurative phrase.
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Example Sentences

Examples have not been reviewed.

But for Le Pen, this could be the death knell of her long-cherished ambition to become French president.

From

The death knell was the wretched failure of Christian nationalism as a governing style.

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One senior Arab source told me it could be its "death knell".

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Sometimes, that celebration of energy can obfuscate the real artistic merits of a film, a director’s blinkered vision becoming a death knell.

From

But whether history will look back on his appearance as the well-timed heralding of another economic boom - or a death knell - remains to be seen.

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Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023

Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.

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