Meaning of death knell | Babel Free

Definitions

1. The tolling of a bell announcing death.
2. A marker, sign or omen foretelling the imminent end, death or destruction of something.
   broadly

Equivalents

Examples

“The sound was the stroke of a bell from the tower of East Endelstow Church. […] The death-knell of an inhabitant of the eastern parish was being tolled.”

“Its recurrence was regular, but as slow as the tolling of a death-knell.”

“The thought was a death-knell to Helen's last hope, and she sank down, quite overcome;[…]”

“"It is the death knell of an orchestra if it doesn't have its own home," he says.”

“The dirty little secret at the heart of Sex Box, in fact, was that it was a well-meaning and thoughtful anthropological experiment dressed up as a tawdry, tabloid-bating death knell for standards of common decency.”

“A rupture would represent a death knell for the West and would harm the US worker.”

“One day in the not too distant future, we may look back on Donald Trump’s return to power as the death knell of “liberal internationalism.””

CEFR level