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What is "non-violent"

Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English
non-violent
adjective
EXAMPLES FROM OTHER ENTRIES
▪ In 1942, the Congress Party demanded immediate independence, and threatened massive though non-violent resistance.
▪ Our organization has always been non-violent and non-partisan.
EXAMPLES FROM CORPUS
▪ And it is he who is credited with introducing King to the writings of Gandhi and the concept of non-violent resistance.
▪ In contrast, Piaroa minimize gender differences and maintain the same normative code of non-violent behaviour for both males and females.
▪ In this sense political activity has to do with non-violent contention within an ordered framework.
▪ Some of us old fogies - I am 60 - are non-violent from necessity.
▪ The detainees include individuals suspected of involvement in armed opposition or non-violent anti-government activity.
▪ They are believed to have been non-violent, adhering scrupulously to an other-worldly pacifism.
▪ This section will focus on these two perspectives and their relationship with non-violent aspects of communal group protest activity.
▪ Yet when it comes to acting against those making a non-violent protest against fuel prices, they suddenly seem very keen indeed.
Douglas Harper's Etymology Dictionary
non-violent

also nonviolent, 1896, from non- + violent. From 1920 in reference to "principle or practice of abstaining from violence," in writings of M.K. Gandhi. \n\nIt is better to be violent, if there is violence in our hearts, than to put on the cloak of non-violence to cover impotence.

[Gandhi, "Non-violence in Peace and War," 1948]

Wiktionary
non-violent

a. 1 (Of a deed, event etc.) Without violence. 2 (Of a person or movement) opposed to violence. 3 (Of a convict) sentenced for a crime that did not involve violence. alt. 1 (Of a deed, event etc.) Without violence. 2 (Of a person or movement) opposed to violence. 3 (Of a convict) sentenced for a crime that did not involve violence.

Usage examples of "non-violent".

If they were to make an initial non-violent contact with the Dyson aliens, I would expect them to make some attempt to communicate and build up a rapport.

At one moment his "moral support" is with the Allies, at another it is withdrawn, at one moment he thinks it best to come to terms with the Japanese, at another he wishes to oppose them by non-violent means -- at the cost, he thinks, of several million lives -- at another he urges Britain to give battle in the West and leave India to be invaded, at another he "has no wish to harm the Allied cause" and declares that he does not want the Allied troops to leave India.