deathbed

Meanings

1. 1
   noun

   the bed in which a person is dying or has died

   Her family gathered quietly around her deathbed.

2. 2
   noun

   the final period of a person's life immediately before death

   On his deathbed, he asked his daughters to reconcile.

From Middle English dethbed, inherited from Old English deathbedd, a compound of death + bed. Old English could also use the compound for a grave; the modern figurative sense extends the physical bed to the final hours spent in it.

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