living death

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living death (usually uncountable, plural living deaths)

1. (idiomatic) A condition of suffering, solitude, or impairment so extreme as to deprive one's existence of all happiness and meaning.
   • c. 1593 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Tragedy of Richard the Third: […]”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act I, scene ii]:

     Lady Anne: Never hung poison on a fouler toad.

     Out of my sight! thou dost infect my eyes.

     Gloucester: Thine eyes, sweet lady, have infected mine.

     Lady Anne: Would they were basilisks, to strike thee dead!

     Gloucester: I would they were, that I might die at once;

     For now they kill me with a living death.

   • 1860, George Eliot, chapter 6, in The Mill on the Floss:

     Mr. Tulliver, who had begun, in his intervals of consciousness, to manifest an irritability which often appeared to have as a direct effect the recurrence of spasmodic rigidity and insensibility, had lain in this living death throughout the critical hours.

   • 1893, Arthur Conan Doyle, chapter 23, in The Refugees:

     If their creed were no longer tolerated, then, and if they remained true to it, they must either fly from the country or spend a living death tugging at an oar or working in a chain-gang upon the roads.

   • 1904, E. Phillips Oppenheim, chapter 9, in The Master Mummer:

     "[W]e cling so closely here to our own doctrine of isolation. . . ."
     "Isobel is intended, then?" I asked.
     "For the Church," Madame Richard answered. . . .
     "Madame," I answered, "Isobel is meant for life—not a living death."

   • 2004 November 7, John Schwartz; James Estrin, “Living for Today, Locked in a Paralyzed Body”, in New York Times, retrieved 12 June 2014:

     A.L.S., or Lou Gehrig's disease, is often described as a kind of living death in which the body goes flaccid while the mind remains intact and acutely aware.

• agony
• desolation
• misery

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