| cause of death | Condition or circumstance that results in death.
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| cosmopolitan society | A social group or community having worldwide rather than limited or provincial scope; globally aware and culturally diverse.
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| cultural lag | A situation whereby a society falls behind in dealing with new social problems that result from technological advances and rapid social changes.
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| danger-of-death narratives | Stories or accounts of close calls with death.
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| death anxiety | Fearful or apprehensive uneasiness of mind about the threat of personal annihilation or ultimate prospect of one's own death.
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| death education | Formal or informal instruction about dying, grief, and related topics.
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| death notice | A standardized report giving brief details about a person's life and published, usually in small type in a single column, in a newspaper after his or her death. An account of a person's life and death printed in a format similar to other feature stories.
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| death talk | Language about death, especially the use of metaphors, euphemisms, and slang.
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| demographics | The size, shape, distribution, and other statistical information about a population.
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| Dies Irae | Literally, "Day of Wrath"; a musical symbol of death; a spoken, chanted, or sung segment of the mass for the dead. A solemn and mournful song or hymn expressing grief; often accompanying funeral or memorial rites.
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| dirge | A solemn and mournful song or hymn expressing grief; often accompanying funeral or memorial rites. Literally, "Day of Wrath"; a musical symbol of death; a spoken, chanted, or sung segment of the mass for the dead.
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| elegy | A song or poem expressing sorrow in a pensive or reflective manner and commemorating a person's life and death.
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| epidemiologic transition | An historical shift in disease patterns causing a redistribution of deaths from the young to the old.
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| euphemisms | Substitution of an indirect or vague word or phrase for one considered harsh or blunt.
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| geographical mobility | Demographic pattern whereby large segments of a population move frequently.
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| hibakusha | A Japanese word meaning "explosion-affected"; originally used to describe survivors of the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki; more broadly, refers to pervasive anxiety about the threat of annihilation.
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| institutional denial | Socially institutionalized avoidance of death-related thoughts and emotions.
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| kanikau | A traditional Hawaiian poetic lament, carefully composed or spontaneously created, commemorating a person's death.
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| lament | A musical expression of ritual leave-taking; an emotionally moving expression of loss and longing.
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| life expectancy | The number of years a newborn child is expected to live based on statistical averages.
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| life-extending technologies | Medical techniques and associated devices employed to sustain functioning of the biological organism.
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| Loss-ography | A written account of the losses experienced by an individual, the circumstances in which they occurred, and the responses of others in the person's environment.
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| managed death | The attempt to control or seek mastery of the threat of death or the circumstances of dying by application of medical technology and by personal and social choices.
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| mean world syndrome | A situation in which the symbolic use of death contributes to a "discourse of fear" leading to a heightened sense of danger and irrational dread of dying.
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| mortality rates | A statistical measure used to compare the frequency of deaths occurring due to different causes or among different populations.
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| obituary | An account of a person's life and death printed in a format similar to other feature stories. A standardized report giving brief details about a person's life and published, usually in small type in a single column, in a newspaper after his or her death.
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| postmodernism | Characterized by a reappraisal of taken-for-granted beliefs and an exploration of and openness to ideas and customs from all historical periods and cultures.
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| public vs. private loss | A distinction between the public and private aspects of a loss-event whereby the private sorrow of the bereaved may either conflict with or be comforted by the dimensions of the loss as a public event.
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| revictimization | A situation in which media coverage or publicity about a horrific death evokes a "second trauma" for the bereaved in addition to the initial trauma of the loss itself.
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| sites of memory | Focal points for public grief and mourning, as well as memorialization.
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| terror management theory | The idea that the basic motivation for human behavior is the need to deny the terror of death and, because our anxiety about death is so overwhelming, we keep it unconscious.
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| thanatology | The interdisciplinary study of death as a significant aspect of human existence and concern.
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| vigilante stories | Stories, such as detective novels, in which a hero strives to avenge evil while becoming corrupted by a self-justifying morality that results in perpetuating violence.
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