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What is "lethal"

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lethal
Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English
lethal
adjective
COLLOCATIONS FROM OTHER ENTRIES
a lethal injection (=one that kills someone)
▪ Pinkerton was executed by lethal injection.
a lethal/deadly weapon (=one that can kill)
▪ A knife is a lethal weapon.
a lethal/fatal dose (=an amount that kills you)
▪ She took a lethal dose of painkillers.
lethal cocktail
▪ a lethal cocktail of painkillers and whisky
COLLOCATIONS FROM CORPUS
■ ADVERB
more
▪ Nothing is more lethal for certain kinds of meme than a tendency to look for evidence.
▪ They give off thick black toxic fumes, which often prove to be more lethal than the flames themselves.
▪ They had no idea that the woman they escorted was far more lethal than ever they could hope to be.
▪ Infidelity had become freshly dangerous, potentially much more lethal to a marriage than adultery had been previously.
▪ The snake has enemies more lethal than Laverne's memorable mild teasing.
▪ This is partly because single status at younger ages appears to have been consistently even more lethal for men than for women.
most
▪ When mobbing occurs, the situation is far too unpredictable from second to second to suit even the most lethal predator.
▪ Charlie was the cruellest and most lethal type of seducer.
▪ The stuff that furs up coronary arteries must be one of the most lethal substances known to man.
▪ Gastric cancer and especially oesophageal cancer ate two of the most lethal gastrointestinal cancers in terms of cure rate and survival.
▪ He synthesises new chemical poisons of the most lethal kind and sprays the countryside wholesale.
▪ It was these, not so much the explosions perse that made the Krakatoa eruption the most lethal on record.
▪ And it promised to be the most weird - was definitely the most lethal.
▪ Hepatocellular carcinoma is one of the most lethal malignancies in the world.
potentially
▪ Police in Gloucestershire have made their first seizure of the potentially lethal drug.
▪ Salesmen warning DOOR-TO-DOOR salesmen are posing as Fire Brigade representatives to sell potentially lethal fire extinguishers, it has been disclosed.
▪ This is a potentially lethal combination, but modern techniques help to safeguard us from those risks.
▪ A Green Party spokesman said that spent fuel rods are highly radioactive and potentially lethal.
▪ They're lovely to look at, but remember that old Christmas tree lights are potentially lethal.
▪ They say they come across thousands of examples of potentially lethal appliances.
▪ He'd had more than enough of her reckless approach to potentially lethal situations.
■ NOUN
cocktail
▪ In a flourish of biochemical altruism, they manufacture deadly molecules and then turn this lethal cocktail upon themselves.
▪ It probably illustrates it's a lethal cocktail of lorries and cars.
▪ After all, each state comprised an often lethal cocktail of peoples.
combination
▪ N New tank syndrome: A lethal combination of all the problems mentioned in this article.
▪ Not to mention that lethal combination of hands and strength.
▪ Together however, these factors can prove a lethal combination.
▪ This is a potentially lethal combination, but modern techniques help to safeguard us from those risks.
▪ The little church has suffered from the rigours of time and town planning, normally a lethal combination, and survived.
▪ An aptly named gas, discovered in 1766, it had that potentially lethal combination of having both explosive and lifting properties.
dose
▪ Operators received lethal doses of radiation while needlessly reconnecting the water supply to the devastated reactor.
▪ The prison staff member will then begin to administer lethal doses of three chemicals.
▪ Some workers received lethal doses because the rest of the site was not evacuated.
▪ What effect on pain might, say, three-quarters of the lethal dose have had?
▪ Usually one of Robert's business prospects would be invited for a lethal dose of glamour.
▪ The river still carries a lethal dose of poisons.
▪ Shipman was convicted last year of murdering 15 female patients with lethal doses of diamorphine.
drug
▪ Police in Gloucestershire have made their first seizure of the potentially lethal drug.
▪ Some one else will inject lethal drugs into his bloodstream.
▪ None saw his executioners spend several minutes hunting for a vein to administer the lethal drugs.
injection
▪ In May 1986 the Supreme Court rejected his final appeals and Pinkerton was executed by lethal injection.
▪ McVeigh is scheduled to die by lethal injection May 16 at a federal prison in Terre Haute.
▪ California has executed four San Quentin inmates since the death penalty was reinstated in 1978, the last two by lethal injection.
▪ His four-minute execution by lethal injection in Indianain the United States was perhaps the most minutely scrutinised death in history.
▪ You know, lethal injection, the needle.
▪ Death will come by lethal injection, rather than cyanide gas, since gassing has been challenged in California as unduly cruel.
▪ He would be the first California death row inmate to be executed by lethal injection.
weapon
▪ Bearing in mind that the knife is a lethal weapon, what happens if you get it wrong?
▪ Roughly half of child killers used a gun, while 16 percent used their own hands and feet as lethal weapons.
▪ As I couldn't take Lisabeth with me, it was the nearest thing I had to a lethal weapon.
▪ Being in charge of a lethal weapon, so to speak.
▪ Sentencing Harris, Lord Sutherland, told him that attempted murders involving such lethal weapons were becoming far too prevalent.
▪ Atkinson has a lethal weapon in Dean Saunders - recruited from Liverpool - who is aiming to wreck United's dream.
▪ For statistics alone are unlikely to stop a 17-year-old putting his foot down in a lethal weapon.
EXAMPLES FROM OTHER ENTRIES
▪ A lethal cocktail of pollutants is being poured into Scotland's coastal waters, according to Greenpeace.
▪ a lethal dose of heroin
▪ Almost any sharp or pointed object can potentially be a lethal weapon.
▪ Most pesticides are lethal to earthworms on or near the surface.
▪ That cocktail looks pretty lethal.
▪ The poison produced by the frog's skin is so lethal that it can paralyze a bird or a monkey immediately.
EXAMPLES FROM CORPUS
▪ California has executed four San Quentin inmates since the death penalty was reinstated in 1978, the last two by lethal injection.
▪ Death will come by lethal injection, rather than cyanide gas, since gassing has been challenged in California as unduly cruel.
▪ If his execution proceeds as scheduled, he would become the first to die by lethal injection in California.
▪ Kaczynski sought to build increasingly lethal bombs by improving his bomb design and his bomb-making techniques.
▪ More than 40,000 of these lethal machines were sold between 1986 and 1988.
▪ Potential lethal cardiac arrhythmias and convulsions are recognised complications of both iatrogenic and self inflicted overdoses.
▪ The bite itself is painful, but never lethal.
The Collaborative International Dictionary
Lethal

Lethal \Leth"al\ (l[e^]th"[a^]l), n. [Lauric + ether + alcohol.] (Chem.) One of the higher alcohols of the paraffine series obtained from spermaceti as a white crystalline solid. It is so called because it occurs in the ethereal salt of lauric acid.

Lethal

Lethal \Le"thal\ (l[=e]"thal), a. [L. lethalis, letalis, fr. lethum, letum, death: cf. F. l['e]thal.] Deadly; mortal; fatal. ``The lethal blow.''
--W. Richardson. -- Le"thal*ly, adv.

Douglas Harper's Etymology Dictionary
lethal

1580s, from Late Latin lethalis, alteration of Latin letalis "deadly, fatal," from letum "death," of uncertain origin. Form altered in Late Latin by association with lethe hydor "water of oblivion" in Hades in Greek mythology, from Greek lethe "forgetfulness."

Wiktionary
lethal

Etymology 1 a. deadly; mortal; fatal. Etymology 2

n. (context chemistry English) One of the higher alcohols of the paraffine series obtained from spermaceti as a white crystalline solid.

Related phrases:
WordNet
lethal

adj. of an instrument of certain death; "deadly poisons"; "lethal weapon"; "a lethal injection" [syn: deadly]

Related phrases:
Wikipedia
Lethal (disambiguation)

That which is lethal is capable of causing death.

Lethal may also refer to:

  • Jay Lethal (born 1985), American professional wrestler
  • Lethal (film), a 2004 action thriller
Lethal (American band)

Lethal is an American heavy metal band from Erlanger, Kentucky, formed in 1982, by brothers Eric Cook and Glen Cook.

Lethal (album)

Lethal is an album by the band Cockney Rejects released in 1990.

Lethal (Argentine band)

Lethal is an Argentine heavy metal band, belonging to the subgenres thrash metal, speed metal and groove metal. It was founded in 1988, by members of a band called Legión.

Related phrases:

Usage examples of "lethal".

If four particles of an agent in a given volume of air killed at least 50 percent of the monkeys exposed to an aerosol, we could assume that ten particles would have an equally lethal effect on human beings.

But the longest stretches were nothing more lethal than prostitutes charging three cigarettes or two atabrine tablets.

Ben took a lethal combination of barbiturates, fell into a coma, and died three days later.

Half a dozen tentacles instantly wound themselves around him and the boy, imbuing them both with the lethal cyanic glow.

As he flew under me I banked the Bronco on its side so I could watch his CBU pods ejecting their lethal bomblets.

Losing both destroyers would be prima facia evidence that conditions on the other side of the foldpoint were lethal.

So the Reds gunned forward, relying on numbers and speed to survive until they could get within one kilometer, their lethal range against the Mark IVs.

In fact, its timing seemed downright providential when, less than a year later, Walton learned that he had contracted a disease far more lethal than leukemia: multiple myeloma, or malignant cancer of the bone marrow.

And out of this communal parturition, lethal to the seven, who now all fell headlong into nescience and non-entity, the single new-born spirit took wing.

A pane shattered, and the nit, freighted with lethal information, glided for the gap.

Phyle A might surreptitiously introduce a few million lethal devices into the bodies of members of Phyle B, providing the technically sweetest possible twist on the trite, ancient dream of being able instantly to turn a whole society into gravy.

As he did so, Quoll darted with astonishing speed to intercept him, the lethal business end of the mace rising high above his head.

Raising his lethal right hand, the quoll took a threatening step forward.

Black Bean Nacho Chips and Tater Skins with another pull at the brown sock as afternoon displaced the morning and the conquest of Africa eighteen thousand dollars the richer had long since given way to the interminable war between the animal and vegetable kingdoms on the nature program where a potato leaf under attack by a caterpillar provoked a lethal case of indigestion in its assailant and a belch from the solitary audience intruded upon with suggestions for his departure by bus?

Ricin is one of the potentially lethal vegetable alkaloids like taxine and digitalin.