deathwatch.

1. A vigil kept beside someone who is dying or believed to be near death.

2. A wood-boring beetle whose tapping sound in old timber has traditionally been associated with an omen of death.

Use it for

Words that belong together

• keep a deathwatch
• bedside deathwatch

On the page

They kept a deathwatch through the night without speaking of the inheritance.

The bedside deathwatch passed from one sister to the other.

Usage notes

Primary category: gothic. Forms: Singular deathwatch; plural deathwatches. Legacy lexical fields mirror sense 1 only. Use numbered sense fields for all meanings.