Spanish Word of the Day Archive
Saturday October 6, 2007

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morir(se), verb:
to die

Morir(se) means to die, both in a literal sense:

Murió de un infarto.
She died of a heart attack.

and in a metaphorical or figurative way:

cuando muere el amor
when love dies

When you are talking literally about death, you use morir (without the -se) if the death is accidental or unexpected, as in:

Murió de un infarto.
She died of a heart attack.

Murió de un disparo en la cabeza.
He died of a shot to the head.

When the death is expected, you use the reflexive form, morirse:

Sus dos padres se murieron el año pasado.
Both her parents died last year.

Remember that in the third person singular and plural of the preterite, the root changes to mur-, as in the last three examples.
Finally, you use morirse in phrases where there is no literal dying involved at all, and the verb is being used as a metaphor:

Nos morimos de risa.
We died laughing or We killed ourselves laughing.

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