If someone looks like death warmed over, they look absolutely terrible — pale, hollow-eyed, barely functional, as if they just crawled out of a sickbed or survived a seriously rough night. The phrase conjures the image of someone who is technically still alive but not looking like they're especially glad about it. It's used both for genuine illness and for the kind of exhausted wreckage you see after an all-nighter or a bad hangover. Common across North America and Canada.
He showed up to the morning meeting looking like death warmed over after his red-eye flight from Vancouver.
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(US, Canada, simile) Ill, unwell.
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Regional slang from around the English-speaking world — British, Australian, Irish, Caribbean, Nigerian, Filipino, AAVE, and the hyphenated-English dialects that make the internet sound local.
See all Regional & Other slang on Slangora.