Definition of kiss of death
: something (such as an act or association) ultimately causing ruin
- The movie has a G rating, which is almost a kiss of death. Last year, fewer than 2% of new films were rated G, and nearly all of those were animated.
- —Sports Illustrated
- Not long ago, when I proposed to my agent that she champion a book of mine as a work of literature instead of trying to present it as a "Sixties memoir," she told me, with a rueful laugh, that in publishing circles nowadays the "L" word is the kiss of death.
- —Joel Agee
- … a faraway region whose populations are so deeply anti-Western that any government cooperation with America can be the kiss of death …
- —Alan Tonelson
