Emily Dickinson Lexicon

DEATH, n. [deth; Sax. death; D. dood; G. tod; Sw. död; Dan. död. See Die and Dead.]

1. That state of a being, animal or vegetable, but more particularly of an animal, in which there is total and permanent cessation of all the vital functions, when the organs have not only ceased to act, but have lost the susceptibility of renewed action. Thus the cessation of respiration and circulation in an animal may not be death, for during hybernation some animals become entirely torpid, and some animals and vegetables may be subjected to a fixed state by frost, but being capable of revived activity, they are not dead.
2. The state of the dead; as, the gates of death. Job xxxviii.
3. The manner of dying. Thou shalt die the deaths of them that are slain in the midst of the seas. – Ezek. xxviii. Let me die the death of the righteous. – Num. xxiii.
4. The image of mortality represented by a skeleton; as, a death's head. – Shak.
5. Murder; as, a man of death. – Bacon.
6. Cause of death. We say, he caught his death. O thou man of God, there is death in the pot. – 2 Kings iv.
7. Destroyer or agent of death; as, he will be the death of his poor father.
8. In poetry, the means or instrument of death; as, an arrow is called the feathered death; a ball, a leaden death. Deaths invisible come winged with fire. – Dryden.
9. In theology, perpetual separation from God, and eternal torments; called the second death. Rev. ii.
10. Separation or alienation of the soul from God; a being under the dominion of sin, and destitute of grace or divine life; called spiritual death. We know that we have passed from death to life because we love the brethren. – 1 John iii. Luke i. Civil death, is the separation of a man from civil society, or from the enjoyment of civil rights; as by banishment, abjuration of the realm, entering into a monastery, &c. – Blackstone.