Which one is correct "died of" or "died from"? [closed]

There's a physics joke that goes "it's not the fall that kills you; it's the sudden stop at the end". Similarly, if you fell twenty stories, we might say that you died from falling, but you died of massive trauma and bloodloss (caused by the fall).

There isn't a hard and fast rule about this, especially since cause and effect are often intertwined in medicine. Broadly speaking, you die of a direct cause; you die from an indirect cause. With cancer or cholera, which are both massive and systemic illnesses, both died of cancer or died from cancer would probably be acceptable to an English speaker.

There's a third common preposition here which is more metaphorical: when someone dies by the sword, for example, we don't literally mean that they died from a sword to the heart. Rather we mean that they were prone to violence, and themselves died violently.

There are some specific rules as were outlined in the other answers but I would like to mention to non-native English users that all 3 are commonly used interchangeably.

Let me show you some examples and it may be clearer:

1. He died of cancer.
2. He died from cancer.
3. He died by cancer (this one is the most likely to raise questions with English speakers and does not sound as correct).

However, in this set of examples all 3 would be considered correct to any English speaker:

1. He died of a gunshot wound.
2. He died from a gunshot wound.
3. He died by a gunshot wound.

When talking about this subject, die of, and die from, are far more common than die by when speaking or writing.

You would more commonly see "death by X" as opposed to "died by X".

There are three main ways to express that:

1. Die of
2. Die from
3. Die by

You use "die of" when when someone dies of a direct cause.

You use "die from" when someone dies from an indirect cause.

You use "die by" when someone dies by the means of something.

He died of cancer.

He died from smoking.

He died by a bullet.