Meaning
An act, event, or association that looks friendly or favourable but guarantees failure or ruin. Typically constructed with 'for' or 'to' ('the kiss of death for the project'), it often describes endorsements, praise, or decisions whose real effect is the opposite of what was intended. Informal and always dire, applied with gloomy irony to doomed plans and unlucky associations. Regional use: General English.
Origin
Etymonline dates the figurative sense, a thing that signifies impending failure, to 1944, first found in Billboard magazine on 21 October that year, and treats it as ultimately alluding to the kiss with which Judas identified Jesus in Gethsemane (Matthew 26:48-50), an act of apparent affection that delivered a man to his enemies. A literal image of a kiss dooming its recipient was reinforced through the twentieth century by popular tales of Mafia killings, but that association is storytelling and folklore rather than documented etymology, and the reference works treat the Judas allusion, not the gangster legend, as the root. Collins records only the current figurative meaning, that something will make a plan fail or be a disaster, and offers no rival origin story.
Research Sources
References used to check this entry’s meaning, history, or documented forms.
Variants
- a kiss of death
- be the kiss of death for
- be the kiss of death to
Usage Examples
- Hiring the founder's brother-in-law turned out to be the kiss of death for the startup's culture.
- In the music industry, winning that Saturday-night talent show is often the kiss of death to a serious career.
- The minister's endorsement became the kiss of death for the referendum in the rural districts.