Resembling death or appearing as though someone is dead; extremely still, pale, or lifeless in appearance.
Compound of 'death' (Old English 'deaþ') and 'like' (Old English 'lic'), meaning 'resembling or similar to.' The compound became common in Middle English to describe things that mimicked death's appearance.
Writers and poets love 'deathlike' because it lets them describe something scary or eerie without saying 'dead'—a deathlike silence is scarier than just 'silence' because it makes you imagine an absence of life.
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