death blow

noun

variants or deathblow

ˈdeth-ˌblō 

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

Examples of death blow in a Sentence

Recent Examples on the Web

New York Review contributors David Cole, Sherrilyn Ifill, and Pamela Karlan come together for a wide-ranging conversation on the consequences of the Supreme Court’s death blow to the Voting Rights Act. — David Cole, The New York Review of Books, 2 June 2026

The death blow came on the heels and in comes in advance of unprecedented efforts by formerly Confederate states undertaking their own efforts to disenfranchise Black voters through gerrymandering. — Chadd Scott, Forbes.com, 18 May 2026

So why shouldn’t Trump exploit that fragility to land a death blow against a murderous adversary? — Franklin Foer, The Atlantic, 11 Mar. 2026

And in January the administration delivered a death blow to a program that was meant to deploy backup solar and storage systems at hospitals and at 30,000 homes of rural, low-income and medically vulnerable people, according to Latitude Media. — Stephanie Pappas, Scientific American, 9 Feb. 2026

Word History

First Known Use

circa 1586, in the meaning defined at sense 1

Rhymes for death blow

• acknow
• aglow
• ago
• airglow
• aloe
• altho
• although
• ammo
• backflow
• backhoe
• banjo
• barbeau

Kids Definition

deathblow

noun

death·​blow -ˌblō 

: a destructive or killing stroke or event