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Dictionary

Words, grammatical forms and meanings linked to the ontology.

in extremis en · ADP

Etymology

Borrowed from Latin in extrēmīs.

Meanings

  1. At the point of death.
    • Military records describing the deaths of men as a result of injuries sustained during combat employed the phrase in a (now near-obsolete) sense to describe a man on the verge of dying: […] 'He was in extremis when seen and died about 2 hours after the action ceased at 9 pm'. 2018 December 13, Edmund Richardson, Classics in Extremis: The Edges of Classical Reception, Bloomsbury Publishing, →ISBN, page 116:
  2. (broadly) In desperate circumstances.
    • There was a reason we would call up the Reserves only in extremis. 2016 February 9, Christopher Holshek, Travels with Harley: Journeys in Search of Personal and National Identity, Inkshares, →ISBN:
    • This book sets out to look at what we have termed 'social work in extremis'. It is an attempt to bring together a number of case studies that look at social work responses in 'extreme' or crisis situations. 2011, Michael Lavalette, Vasilios Ioakimidis, Social Work in Extremis: Lessons for Social Work Internationally, Policy Press, →ISBN, page 1:
    • The purpose, of course, was to find out if the prisoner, in extremis, broke down and wrote to a family in Israel. 2001 [1990], Robert Fisk, Pity the Nation: Lebanon at War, Oxford University Press, →ISBN, page 410:

Relateds

dire straits

Translations (8)

fi hätätapauksessa (in desperate circumstances) · pl in extremis (in desperate circumstances) · pt in extremis (in desperate circumstances) · mi whakahemohemo (at the point of death) · pt in extremis (at the point of death) · fi henkitoreissa (at the point of death) · pl in extremis (at the point of death) · fi henkihieverissä (at the point of death)