die in harness

By metaphor from the literal sense referring to working horses dying while on the job, wearing their harness.

die in harness (third-person singular simple present dies in harness, present participle dying in harness, simple past and past participle died in harness)

1. Of a person, to pass away before retirement.
   • 1941 June, Cecil J. Allen, “British Locomotive Practive and Performance”, in Railway Magazine, page 260:

     As he himself [Sir Nigel Gresley] would doubtless have wished, he died in harness; only a few weeks previously he had been present at the first public view of his latest design, the Bantam Cock, which, like most of his products, bore all over it the impress of his personality.

• die in office

• “die in harness”, in Lexico, Dictionary.com; Oxford University Press, 2019–2022.