die with one's boots on

To die while still actively working or in the age or physical condition to do so (i.e., before retirement). The thought of growing old depresses me. I'd rather die with my boots on.

Also, die in harness. Expire while working, keep working to the end, as in He'll never retire-he'll die with his boots on, or She knows she'll never get promoted, but she wants to die in harness. Both phrases probably allude to soldiers who died on active duty. Until the early 1600s the noun boot denoted a piece of armor for the legs, which may have given rise to this usage; and Shakespeare used harness in the sense of armor when he wrote: "At least we'll die with harness on our back" ( Macbeth 5:5).

To keep on working to the end. The analogy of a draft horse working until it drops dates from Shakespeare’s time (or earlier). “At least we’ll die with harness on our back,” says Macbeth before his fateful battle with Macduff (Macbeth, 5.5). Such a death, incidentally, is considered desirable and admirable. “It is a man dying with his harness on that angels love to escort upward,” said the American preacher Henry Ward Beecher (Proverbs from Plymouth Pulpit, 1887). Precisely the same is meant by to die with one’s boots on, although more likely this expression comes from the battlefield (soldiers dying on active duty).