Definition of death blow
1
: a forcible stroke that kills a living thing : an act that ends the life of a person or animal
- A gaping wound in the back of his head suggests the death blow was delivered by a halberd, a bladed pole weapon favored in the 15th century.
- —Rachel Ehrenberg
- … the tooth helps to dislocate the prey's neck vertebrae, the death blow most often dealt to small mammals and birds.
- —Sarah A. Sloane
2
: an act or event that causes the end or failure of something
- It shows how investors with risky business plans, unrealistic financial assumptions, and competing agendas can deliver a death blow to companies that otherwise could have survived.
- —Emily Thornton
- Nevis's fortunes declined after 1822, when the European sugar beet dealt a deathblow to the distant, inefficient cane mills of the Indies.
- —Peter Theroux
