Definition of "last rites" []

• Rites performed for a person in danger of dying or in connection with burial, as the Anointing of the Sick in the Roman Catholic Church. (noun-plural)

American Heritage(R) Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright (c) 2011 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

• "The greater part of the material for the ninth volume was ready when Bouquet died (1754), after receiving the last rites of the Church."
• "Now Bulman had turned from doctor into priest and was there to administer the last rites to this aircraft which had meant so much to all of them."
• "At the end of her life, we are told, she was carried by angels to St Maximin by then the first bishop of Provence who gave her the last rites just before she died."