dying
adjective · noun
Simple meaning
Approaching death; about to die.
Pronunciation
Say it like this:
dyingSay the bold part a little louder.
IPA pronunciation (US)
ˈdaɪɪŋ
This word is pronounced essentially the same in American and British English, so one transcription covers both.
IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) is a standard way of writing speech sounds.
Definition
Everyday modern meanings first, grouped by part of speech.
adjective
Approaching death; about to die; moribund.
Declining, terminal, or drawing to an end.
Pertaining to death, or the moments before death.
noun
The process of approaching death; loss of life; death.
Word at a Glance
- Difficulty
- B1 · Intermediate
- Frequency
- Common
- Typical Use
- Everyday English
Word Aura™
How this word commonly comes across.
Aura for this meaning
This meaning: Approaching death; about to die; moribund.
Used this way, dying is a reasonably familiar word with a clearly unfavourable pull. It usually sounds natural in a wide range of settings.
- Emotional tone
- Negative
- Formality
- Neutral
- Intensity
- Moderate
- How common
- Moderately common
- Connotation
- Serious and weighty
- Usage feel
- Neutral and straightforward
Word Aura describes common impressions, not a measurement. Tone changes with sentence, speaker, relationship and situation.
More ways to use dying
- “The old tree was dying slowly after years of neglect.”
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Common Patterns and Combinations
How this word naturally appears with others.
More about this wordSynonyms, forms, origin
Antonyms
Sense: approaching death
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Dictionary data from Wiktionary via the Free Dictionary API. Simple meanings, combinations and word intelligence are built from verified reference data, no AI is used to load this page.