death watch
Bedside final hours
A death watch is a vigil kept beside someone who is dying or has recently died.
The term also describes a period of anxious waiting for an inevitable end—not just of a person but of institutions, careers, or eras: The press began its death watch over the failing company.
A deathwatch beetle makes ticking sounds in wood, superstitiously associated with impending death.
- vigilPurposeful nighttime wakefulness
- beetleHard-winged insect
- timerDuration-tracking mechanism
- deathbedDying person's resting place
- countdownBackward enumeration to zero
ticking clock · ticking · waiting · morbid · woodworm · funeral · hourglass · on borrowed time · omen · insect · ominous · knocking · terminal · bedside · final · coffin · superstition · mortality
- death omensbanshee, Grim Reaper, harbinger, corpse candle, deathwatch beetle
- executionexecution, lethal injection, firing squad, gas chamber, electric chair
- fictional customsred wedding, naming day, Festivus, trial by combat, initiation rite
- macabrecorpse, corpses, skull, skulls, skeleton
death watchchristening
Ceremony naming a child
baptism · baby shower · welcome party · homecoming · expecting
death watchconvalescence
Post-illness healing phase
recuperation · revival · rally · turnaround · remission
death watchcelebration
Festive event marking occasion
jubilee · festivity · revelry · rejoicing · merrymaking
death, watch, deaths, dead, deadly, deathly, deaden, deadened, deadening