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The Collaborative International Dictionary
Lethality

Lethality \Le*thal"i*ty\ (l[-e]*th[a^]l"[i^]*t[y^]), n. [Cf. F. l['e]thalit['e].] The quality of being lethal; mortality.

Douglas Harper's Etymology Dictionary
lethality

1650s, from lethal + -ity.

Wiktionary
lethality

n. 1 the fact of something being lethal; the ability of something to kill 2 the rate of death of organisms exposed to something

WordNet
lethality

n. the quality of being deadly [syn: deadliness]

Wikipedia
Lethality

Lethality (also called deadliness or perniciousness) is how capable something is of causing death. Most often it is used when referring to chemical weapons, biological weapons, or their toxic chemical components. The use of this term denotes the ability of these weapons to kill, but also the possibility that they may not kill. Reasons for the lethality of a weapon to be inconsistent, or expressed by percentage, can be as varied as minimized exposure to the weapon, previous exposure to the weapon minimizing susceptibility, degradation of the weapon over time and/or distance, and incorrect deployment of a multi-component weapon.

This term can also refer to the after-effects of weapon use, such as Nuclear Fallout, which has highest lethality nearest the deployment site, and in proportion to the subject's size and nature; e.g. a child or small animal.

Lethality can also refer to the after-effects of a chemical explosion. A lethality curve can be developed for process safety reasons to protect people and equipment. The impact is typically greatest closest to the explosion site and lessens to the outskirts of the impact zone. Pressure, toxicity and location affect the lethality.

Lethality is also a term used by microbiologists and food scientists as a measure of the ability of a process to destroy bacteria. Lethality may be determined by enumeration of survivors after incremental exposures.

Category:Military doctrines Category:Military terminology

Usage examples of "lethality".

Even best case, the calculated exposure fell high on the lethality curve.

Allowed to range unchecked, argued the Sharman team, a virus demonstrating 100 percent lethality must eventually bring about the extinction of the host organism.

Not a few of the officers and soldiers were terrified at thoughts of even entering that dim, damp, death-crawling realm of the sinister fen-men, who were seldom seen and who killed from a distance with blowgun darts steeped in poisonsestimates of the actual distance, accuracy and lethality of the poisons varied greatly, dependent mostly upon just how close was the individual speaker to fear-induced hysteria at the time of the telling.

Within six months, we'll have the ability to overwhelm Trigger-based defenses and use our conventional weaponry to apply any degree of destructive lethality appropriate to our objectives.

Now, the other issue is the accuracy and lethality of kinetic-energy weapons.

Some wild, reckless, primal piece of me had always loved the danger, the adrenaline, had always loved testing myself against the various and sundry would-be lethalities that crossed my paths.