die in harness
verbEtymology Refers metaphorically to working horses dying while on the job, wearing their harness.
- 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.1941 June, Cecil J. Allen, “British Locomotive Practive and Performance”, in Railway Magazine, page 260: