Definition of death

Both religion and mythology concern themselves with what happens after death. They usually involve reincarnation or some form of an afterlife.

Arts are, perhaps, the very oldest disciplines to explore death. Historically, the average human had a significantly lower standard of living and lifespan in the past than today. Wars, famine, and disease always kept death close at hand. Artists, authors, and poets often employed the universality of death as a motif in their works and continue today.

The social sciences are often involved on both the individual and on the cultural level. The individual level is primarily covered by psychology, the study of individual minds. Avoiding (or, in some cases, seeking) death is an important human motive; the fear of death affects and effects many individuals’ actions.

Sociology is the study of social rules. Every society has developed attitudes towards death. Sub-disciplines within sociology, such as the sociology of disaster, focus more narrowly on the issue of how societies handle death. Likewise, cultural anthropology and archeology concern themselves with how current and past cultures deal with death, respectively.

Last but not least, medical science and medicine are also very important fields of study of death. The biological study of death helps explain what happens, physically, to individuals in the moment of dying and after-death bodily changes. Pharmacology investigates how prescription drugs can ease death, and in some cases prevent early deaths. Psychiatry, the medical application of psychological principles and therapeutic drugs, is also involved.

Synonyms of death

Killing, homicide, manslaughter, murder, assassination, trucidation; effusion of blood; blood, blood shed; gore, slaughter, carnage, butchery; battue, massacre; fusillade, noyade; thuggery, thuggism, deathblow, finishing stroke, coup de grace, quietus; execution; judicial murder; martyrdom. Killer, butcher, slayer, murderer, Cain, assassin, terrorist, cutthroat, garroter, bravo, Thug, Moloch, matador, sabreur; guet-a-pens; gallows, executioner; man-eater, apache, hatchet man [U.S.], … Read more

Thanatology

Thanatology is the science that study death. It investigates the circumstances surrounding death, the grief experienced by the deceased’s loved ones, and larger social attitudes towards death. It is primarily an interdisciplinary study, frequently undertaken by professionals in nursing, psychiatry, and veterinary science. It also describes bodily changes that accompany death and after-death period. The … Read more

Forensics

Forensic science (often shortened to forensics) is the application of a broad spectrum of sciences to answer questions of interest to the legal system. This may be in relation to a crime or to a civil action. The use of the term “forensics” in place of “forensic science” could be considered incorrect; the term “forensic” … Read more

Biological death

Physical death is the cessation of normal body functions, the irreversible loss of both components of consciousness, arousal and awareness . In legal terms defined as “brain death”, i.e., loss of higher cortical functions. Death is the irreversible ending of life. Biologically, death can occur to wholes, to parts, or to both. For example, it … Read more

Spiritual death

A classical point of departure in defining death, seems to be life itself. Death is perceived either as a cessation of life – or as a passage on the way to a continuation of life by other means. A logically more rigorous approach, would be to ask “who dies” when death occurs. In other words, … Read more

Macabre

According to Gaston Paris (Romania, xxiv., 131; 1895), Macabre is a French word that makes its first known appearance in the fourteenth century, in a fragmented poem by Jean le Fèvre’s Respit de la mort (1376) “Je lis de Macabre la danse”. The term is supposed by some sources to have developed from Maccabee, the … Read more

Necrophilia

Necrophilia, also known as necrophilism, necrolagnia, necrocoitus, necrochlesis, and thanatophilia, is a mental disease whereby the perpetrator gets sexual pleasure in having sex with the dead (Aggrawal, 2014). It is classified as a paraphilia by the World Health Organization (WHO) in its International Classification of Diseases (ICD) diagnostic manual, as well as by the American … Read more