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Death's-head   Listen
noun
Death's-head  n.  A naked human skull as the emblem of death; the head of the conventional personification of death. "I had rather be married to a death's-head with a bone in his mouth."
Death's-head moth (Zool.), a very large European moth (Acherontia atropos), so called from a figure resembling a human skull on the back of the thorax; called also death's-head sphinx.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Death's-head" Quotes from Famous Books



... chased, and the infallible insignia of a tuning-fork: without this no professional singer does or can exist. The thing has been tried, and found a failure. Its uses are remarkable and various: like the "death's-head and cross-bones" of the pirates, or the wand, globe, and beard of the conjuror, it is their sure and unvarying sign. We have in our mind's eye one of the species even now—we see him coquetting with the fork, compressing it with gentle fondness, and then (that all senses ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 1, July 17, 1841 • Various

... over the embankments, and dashing through the embrasures of the forts. In an hour the C. S. A.,—the Confederate Slave Argosy,—the Ship of State launched but four years ago, which went proudly sailing, with the death's-head and cross-bones at her truck, on a cruise against Civilization and Christianity, hailed as a rightful belligerent, furnished with guns, ammunition, provisions, and all needful supplies, by England and France, was thrown a helpless wreck ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 92, June, 1865 • Various

... pretty glum evening all round. Most of them thought that Jones had got the chilly mitt. Eleanor looked pale and undecided, not knowing what to make of Jones' death's-head face. She was resentful and pitying in turns, and I saw all the material lying around for a first-class conflagration. Freddy was a bit down on me, too, saying that a smoother method would have ironed out Jones, and that I had been headlong and silly. She cried over it, and wouldn't kiss ...
— The Motormaniacs • Lloyd Osbourne

... not very interesting, was quite a favourite before she died. She left Wynnie—for she and her brother were the last of their race—a death's-head watch, which had been in the family she did not know how long. I think it is as old as Queen Elizabeth's time. I took it to London to a skilful man, and had it as well repaired as its age would admit of; and it has gone ever since, though not with the greatest accuracy; ...
— The Seaboard Parish Volume 1 • George MacDonald

... mean that big sphinx moth that is commonly known as the 'death's-head moth.' Why the mischief should the people here call ...
— Famous Modern Ghost Stories • Various

... ears were so obturated with vanity as not to have heard the shrieks of half-stifled laughter created by his first public appearance in this fashionable guise, which only required to be completed by the death's-head pin with which Bruce presented him, (and which therefore he was obliged to wear), ...
— Julian Home • Dean Frederic W. Farrar

... croaking of the toad, In their caves that make abode; Earthy Dun that pants for breath, With her swelled sides full of death; By the crested adders' pride, That along the clifts do glide; By thy visage fierce and black; By the death's-head on thy back; By the twisted serpents placed For a girdle round thy waist; By the hearts of gold that deck Thy breast, thy shoulders, and thy neck: From thy sleepy mansion rise, And open thy unwilling eyes, While bubbling springs their music keep, ...
— The Works of John Dryden, Vol. II • Edited by Walter Scott

... noontide of your prosperity, an unwelcome remembrancer, a perpetually recurring mortification, a drain on your purse, a more intolerable dun upon your pride, a drawback upon success, a rebuke to your rising, a stain in your blood, a blot on your scutcheon, a rent in your garment, a death's-head at your banquet, Agathocles' pot, a Mordecai in your gate, a Lazarus at your door, a lion in your path, a frog in your chamber, a fly in your ointment, a mote in your eye, a triumph to your enemy, an apology to your friends, the one thing not needful, ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Vol. V (of X) - Great Britain and Ireland III • Various

... or a hyena, or a death's-head, could not have shown the Captain more teeth at one time, than Mr Carker showed him at ...
— Dombey and Son • Charles Dickens

... their lives upon it and quenched it in the nick of time, shall pay the rebels their damages! Of this, I believe, on sadly conclusive evidence, there is no doubt whatever. Such, when you wash off the constitutional pigments, is the Death's-head that discloses itself. I can only say, if all the Parliaments in the world were to vote that such a thing was just, I should feel painfully constrained to answer, at my peril, "No, by the Eternal, never!" And I would recommend any British Governor who might come across that Business, ...
— Latter-Day Pamphlets • Thomas Carlyle

... His prison was built between the trenches of the principal rampart, and was of course very dark. It was likewise very damp, and, to crown all, the name of "Trenck" had been printed in red bricks on the wall, above a tomb whose place was indicated by a death's-head. ...
— The Junior Classics • Various

... as he whispered to me unconsciously, "The Acherontia Atropos of the Sphinges, what you call the 'Death's-head Moth'?" ...
— Dracula • Bram Stoker

... their instinct can afford them no regular provision; then it is that their reasoning powers are called into action. I will explain this by stating a fact relative to the bee, one of the animals upon which instinct is most powerful in its action. There is a certain large moth, called the Death's-head moth, which is very fond of honey. It sometimes contrives to force its way through the aperture of the hive, and gain an entrance. The bees immediately attack it, and it is soon destroyed by their stings; but the carcass is so large, that they cannot carry it out of the hive, as they invariably ...
— Masterman Ready • Captain Marryat

... verses, and fallen asleep to another's singing, if there had happened to be such narcotics as music and poetry in dear Lady Margaret's drawing-room. Mind and body, the two Mr. Thompsons were as alike as two peas, as two drops of water, as two Emperor-of-Morocco butterflies, as two death's-head moths. Could they have been twin brothers, like the Dromios of the old drama? or was the vicinity of the Regent's Park peopled with Cockney anglers—Thompsons ...
— The London Visitor • Mary Russell Mitford

... after contemplating it for some minutes, "this is a strange scarabaeus, I must confess: new to me: never saw anything like it before—unless it was a skull, or a death's-head—which, it more nearly resembles than, anything else that has ...
— Short-Stories • Various

... them avidly. Once he clubbed a rabbit and feasted. He sucked birds' eggs from a nest hidden among some reeds—just enough to keep his gaunt body going, though his gray eyes were now set in what was almost a death's-head. ...
— The Time Traders • Andre Norton

... after contemplating it for some minutes, "this is a strange scarabaeus, I must confess; new to me: never saw anything like it before—unless it was a skull, or a death's-head, which it more nearly resembles than anything else that has come ...
— Short Stories for English Courses • Various (Rosa M. R. Mikels ed.)

... a horse-dealer, and the rest are rats," answered Edeko. "They are monsters and demons, vampires, created from dreams of intoxication. They have no faces; their eyes are holes; their voice is a rattle; their nose is that of a death's-head; and ...
— Historical Miniatures • August Strindberg

... sides of its body fringed with fins, and its consequent motion, were much more like the act of flying than that of swimming. Behind him floated his long tail, making him yet more resemble the hideously imagined kite which he at once suggested. But the terrible thing about him was the death's-head look of the upper part of him. His white belly was of course toward them, and his eyes were on the other side, but there were nostrils that looked exactly like the empty sockets of eyes, and below them was a hideous mouth. These made the face that seemed to Saffy to be hovering ...
— Weighed and Wanting • George MacDonald



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