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Definition

Of a person, to pass away before retirement.

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Origins

By metaphor from the literal sense referring to working horses dying while on the job, wearing their harness.

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In Context

  • "As he himself [Sir Nigel Gresley] would doubtless have wished, he died in harness; only a few weeks previously he had been present at the first public view of his latest design, the Bantam Cock, which, like most of his products, bore all over it the impress of his personality."
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Also Said As

  • die in office