to death

to death

1. Literally, fatally. The autopsy shows that the victim was stabbed to death.
2. To an excessive, extreme, or intolerable degree. I feel like we've discussed this topic to death—let's move on. I was scared to death thinking about what might have happened to you.
See also: death

work (one or oneself) to death

To make someone or oneself work too hard or for excessively long hours. I have worked myself to death renovating this house, and I'm glad to say that it has all been worth it. You're working the entire department to death. You need to give them a break or they'll burn out before we get the project off the ground.
See also: death, work
Farlex Dictionary of Idioms.

to death

To an extreme or intolerable degree, as in I am tired to death of these fund-raising phone calls, or That movie just thrilled me to death. This hyperbolic phrase is used as an intensifier. Also see sick and tired; tired out. [c. 1300]
See also: death
The American Heritage® Dictionary of Idioms by Christine Ammer.

to death

COMMON You use to death after adjectives such as `scared', `worried', and `bored' to emphasize that someone is very frightened, very worried, or very bored. `I am worried to death,' she wrote to her husband. `Even if something is wrong, why don't you let me know?' She may have been scared to death he would leave her. I've been bored to death since I left the army. Note: You can also say, for example, that something scares or bores you to death. One woman described how she woke up in the morning and the hotel she was staying in was empty, which scared her to death. The meetings bored me to death.
See also: death
Collins COBUILD Idioms Dictionary, 3rd ed.

to ˈdeath

extremely; very much: to be bored/frightened/scared/worried to death I’m sick to death of your endless criticism.
See also: death
Farlex Partner Idioms Dictionary

to death

To an intolerable degree; extremely: worried to death.
See also: death
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition.
See also:
  • work (one or oneself) to death
  • literally
  • stabbed in the back
  • be the end
  • DYJHI
  • DYJHIW
  • (the) survival of the fittest
  • beat the living daylights out of
  • beat the tar out of (one)
  • beat/scare the daylights out of somebody
References in periodicals archive
The relationship of religious variables to death depression and death anxiety.
Death depression in Iranian nurses
Smith-Cumberland (2006) found that after exposure to death education, EMTs reported an increased desire to change their behavior at the scene of death, and many reported at a 3-month follow-up that they had changed their behavior to include using words such as died instead of euphemisms such as passed away, which diverts individuals away from the reality of the death.
Death education and attitudes of counselors-in-training toward death: an exploratory study
Life is a detour on the way to death. "Freud cannot provide an example of non-libidinal drives.
The duality between life and death instincts in Freud
Another approach to death feigning comes from a study of the pygmy grasshoppers (Criotettixjaponicus) in Japan.
Why play dead? Rethinking what used to be obvious
Some have (and more will) find something to despair in this abiding attraction to death in Canadian movies, but they will no doubt be the same people who question the necessity of a Canadian cinema in the first place, or who wish our movies could be more like theirs, and that ultimately, is the issue.
Death, Canadian style: Atom Egoyan's The Sweet Hereafter
Conversely, bacterial meningitis caused by Neisseria meningitidis often begins as sore throat, followed by fever and delirium progressing to death. However, in Seurat's case, description of infectious angina and the terminal event of choking to death suggest infectious upper airway obstruction.
Death of Seurat
and Arnette's wedding critically signals the women's readiness for the journey to death. While Ruby's men interpret Mavis and Gigi's fight as evil, and Seneca and Pallas's embrace in the back seat of the Cadillac as perverted, in actuality these women are enacting survival strategies they had previously been afraid to deploy.
"Passing on" death: stealing life in Toni Morrison's Paradise
1610-43), she proposes, rulers shared the nobility's dedication to death in battle, but Louis' death as a pious Christian exemplified a new model, more consistent with absolutist aims.
Helene Germa-Romann. Du "bel mourir" au "bien mourir. "Le sentiment de la mort chez les gentilshommes francais (1515-1643)
Robert Vaughn isn't Robert Vaughn; he's Gary Gauger, sentenced to death in 1994 for killing his parents, exonerated in 1996.
Spotlight on the death penalty
Does "society" in general never have the moral right to put to death one of its members?
Current problems of European democracy
While this is an easy yardstick, since life is a tangible and measurable occurrence when contrasted to death, there should be a higher standard of success based upon following the specific wishes of a patient and his or her family.
Death with dignity: the ultimate human right? (The Popular Condition)
In the year 2000, 49 of the 85 people actually put to death were whites.
Ten anti-death penalty fallacies: the case against capital punishment relies on myth, misinformation, and misplaced emotionalism. (Crime and Punishment)
This "I" is the thread of continuity that runs throughout our lives, from birth to death.
Vedanta: Death and the Art of Dying
First, the doctrine applies in charitable situations because, if a check delivered to a charity prior to death is included in the estate, this would generate a deduction for the estate.
When a gift is not a gift
But 68 percent said they were troubled by the possibility of innocent people being put to death, and 63 percent thought the death penalty was unfair because of its uneven application from state to state and county to county (and, one might add, from defendant to defendant, including co-defendants in the same case).
McVeigh to Macbeth