deathday

deathday

English

Etymology

From Middle English deth-day, deth day, dethe-day, deþ day, from Old English dēaþdæġ (“day of one's death, deathday”), equivalent to death +‎ day. Compare birthday. Compare also German Low German Doodsdag (“deathday”), German Todestag (“deathday”), Danish dødsdag (“deathday”), Swedish dödsdag (“deathday”).

Noun

deathday (plural deathdays)

1. Date of (someone's previous) death; anniversary of a death.
   • 1996, Patrick O'Leary, Door Number Three (ISBN: 0312862873), page 362:

     "Is it her deathday?" I asked. "Nope," he said.

   • 2009, Duchess Dale, How May I Love You Today? (ISBN: 1438999887), page 199:

     It only just dawned on me that intrinsically it felt better to honor her on her birthday rather than her deathday. It has always struck me as odd that more people remember the day Elvis or John Lennon died than the dates they were born.

   • 2011, Sholem Aleichem, Tevye the Dairyman and The Railroad Stories:

     […] just then we needed a tenth man and needed him badly, because one of us had a deathday to observe and wanted to say the mourner's prayer.

Antonyms

• birthday

Translations

anniversary of a death

Chinese: Mandarin: 忌日 (zh) (jìrì), 忌辰 (zh) (jìchén) German: Todestag (de) Hebrew: נחלה‎ (he) f (nakhala) Icelandic: ártíð, dánarafmæli, dánardægur Japanese: 忌日 (ja) (kinichi), 忌辰 (kishin), 命日 (ja) (meinichi) Swedish: dödsdag (sv) c Yiddish: יאָרצײַט‎ (yi) m (yortsayt)

See also

• (anniversary of a death): yahrzeit, yearday