death march

death march (plural death marches)

1. A forced movement of people, on foot, in such circumstances that many die during the journey.

   the Bataan Death March

2. (project management) A project that requires a stretch of unsustainable overwork, or whose participants feel it is destined to fail.
3. Synonym of dead march (“mournful music for a funeral etc.”)
   • 2015, Daniel Allen Hearn, Legal Executions in New England, page 282:

     Jacob Scheele was led to the gallows as a band played a death march.

• forced march