lethal

CEFRC1

/ˈliː.θəl/

adjective · noun

Türkçe translations

Translating…

In plain English

  1. 01

    adjective

    Able to cause death.

  2. 02

    adjective

    Extra detail

    An allele that causes the death of the organism that carries it.

Examples

  • She had been given a lethal dose of poison.

  • The court condemned the man to death by lethal injection.

At a glance

Sits at C1 on the CEFR scale

Senses
5
Parts of speech
2
Citations
1

Deep Dive

adjective

Extra meanings

  1. Any weapon that causes death.

  2. Of, pertaining to, or causing death; deadly; mortal; fatal.

noun

Extra meaning

  1. One of the higher alcohols of the paraffine series obtained from spermaceti as a white crystalline solid.

More examples

In context

  • Apparently ice is lethal!

  • Whether modern, industrial man is less or more warlike than his hunter-gatherer ancestors is impossible to determine. The machine gun is so much more lethal than the bow and arrow that comparisons are meaningless.

Antonyms

Quick test

Two questions on this entry. Nothing is scored.

Question 1 · Quick check

The venom of this spider is blank; it can cause death within hours.

Practise this properly in the app, where the word comes back before you forget it.

Nearby

Origin

adjective

Learned borrowing from Latin lētālis (“deadly, mortal, fatal”), improperly written lēthālis, from lētum (“death”), improperly written as lēthum, from a supposed connection with Ancient Greek λήθη (lḗthē, “oblivion, forgetfulness”).