adj ·Rare ·Advanced level

Definitions

Adjective

1. 1
   Involving the danger of death; fatal, deadly.

   "Five hapless swains with soft allusive smiles / The harlot meshes in her deathful toils […]."

2. 2
   Resembling or pertaining to death; deathly.
3. 3
   Subject to death; mortal. literary

Synonyms

All synonyms

banefulbrutaldeaddeadlydeath dealingdeathly

Example

More examples

"Five hapless swains with soft allusive smiles / The harlot meshes in her deathful toils […]."

Etymology

From Middle English dethful, equivalent to death + -ful.

Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.