death rattle
Dying person's gurgle
A death rattle is the gurgling or rattling sound sometimes heard from a dying person's throat, caused by air passing through accumulated secretions when the person can no longer cough or swallow.
The sound often signals that death is imminent—within hours or days.
Figuratively, a death rattle describes the final signs of something failing: The company's latest layoffs were its death rattle.
Bubbling liquid sound
- labored breathingEffortful, strained respiration
- stridorTurbulent airway noise
- dyspneaLabored respiration condition
- gaspingBreathing in sharp gulps
secretions · respiratory distress · air hunger · wheeze · hypoxia · pallor · cyanosis · aspiration
Final exhale before death
- final momentsThe very end
- deathbedDying person's resting place
- passingMoving by or temporary
- expirationEnd of validity
moribund · terminal · end of life · vigil · bedside · twilight · last rites · anointing
Final work or performance
- last gaspFinal desperate attempt
- curtain callPost-show audience acknowledgment
- beginning of the endStart of final decline
- writing on the wallObvious omen of trouble
dying breath · tolling bell · final act · endgame · countdown
gurgling
Bubbling liquid sound
- labored breathingEffortful, strained respiration
- stridorTurbulent airway noise
- dyspneaLabored respiration condition
gasping · secretions · respiratory distress · air hunger · wheeze · hypoxia · pallor · cyanosis · aspiration · suctioning
last breath
Final exhale before death
- final momentsThe very end
- deathbedDying person's resting place
- passingMoving by or temporary
expiration · moribund · terminal · end of life · vigil · bedside · twilight · last rites · anointing · deathwatch
swan song
Final work or performance
- last gaspFinal desperate attempt
- curtain callPost-show audience acknowledgment
- beginning of the endStart of final decline
dying breath · writing on the wall · tolling bell · final act · endgame · countdown
foreboding
Fearful anticipation of harm
- premonitionAdvance sense of future events
- dreadIntense anticipatory fear
- portentSign of future calamity
warning sign · harbinger · doom · menace · macabre · eerie · chilling · grim · haunting · sinister
- deathcorpse, mortality, demise, dying, fatality
- death idiomskick the bucket, six feet under, deadpan, bought the farm, nail in coffin
- death omensbanshee, Grim Reaper, harbinger, corpse candle, deathwatch beetle
- deathbedlast breath, last words, final moments, final breath, dying wish
- throat soundsgrowl, grunt, groan, croak, gasp
- death signsrigor mortis, flatline, dilated pupils, unresponsive, decomposition
death rattlesigns of life
Evidence of living presence
breath of life · vital signs · life force · heartbeat · pulse
death, deadly, rattle, deaden, deadbeat, deceased, deadened, dead, deadening