Deathwatch (Noun)
Meaning 1
Bores through wood making a ticking sound popularly thought to presage death.
Classification
Nouns denoting animals.
Synonyms
Hypernyms
Meaning 2
Minute wingless psocopterous insects injurious to books and papers.
Classification
Nouns denoting animals.
Examples
- The old library had a severe deathwatch infestation, with tiny insects crawling across the pages of ancient tomes.
- After storing her grandmother's vintage photographs in a damp attic, she opened the trunk to find a deathwatch had ruined the irreplaceable memories.
- Book conservators took special care to eliminate the deathwatch from the rare manuscripts before they could cause further damage.
- The musty smell in the antique bookstore was a sign of a deathwatch problem that the owner had been trying to eradicate for months.
- Archivists worked tirelessly to remove the deathwatch from the historical documents, using specialized techniques to preserve the fragile papers.