Die v. i. [imp. & p. p. Died p. pr. & vb. n. Dying.]
1. To pass from an animate to a lifeless state; to cease to live; to suffer a total and irreparable loss of action of the vital functions; to become dead; to expire; to perish; -- said of animals and vegetables; often with of, by, with, from, and rarely for, before the cause or occasion of death; as, to die of disease or hardships; to die by fire or the sword; to die with horror at the thought.
To die by the roadside of grief and hunger. --Macaulay.
She will die from want of care. --Tennyson.
2. To suffer death; to lose life.
In due time Christ died for the ungodly. --Rom. v. 6.
3. To perish in any manner; to cease; to become lost or extinct; to be extinguished.
Letting the secret die within his own breast. --Spectator.
Great deeds can not die. --Tennyson.
4. To sink; to faint; to pine; to languish, with weakness, discouragement, love, etc.
His heart died within, and he became as a stone. --1 Sam. xxv. 37.
The young men acknowledged, in love letters, that they died for Rebecca. --Tatler.
5. To become indifferent; to cease to be subject; as, to die to pleasure or to sin.
6. To recede and grow fainter; to become imperceptible; to vanish; -- often with out or away.
Blemishes may die away and disappear amidst the brightness. --Spectator.
7. Arch. To disappear gradually in another surface, as where moldings are lost in a sloped or curved face.
8. To become vapid, flat, or spiritless, as liquor.
To die in the last ditch, to fight till death; to die rather than surrender.
=\“There is one certain way,” replied the Prince [William of Orange] “ by which I can be sure never to see my country's ruin, -- I will die in the last ditch.”\= --Hume (Hist. of Eng. ).
-- To die out, to cease gradually; as, the prejudice has died out.
Syn: -- To expire; decease; perish; depart; vanish.