# lethal

Pronunciation: US say "LEE-thuhl" /ˈli.θəl/; UK

## Adjective

1. Causing or capable of causing death; deadly in effect.
   - Simple: Strong enough to kill or cause death.
   - _A lethal dose of the drug can stop the heart within minutes._
   - _Recruits were trained to handle lethal weapons with great care._

## Noun

2. A weapon capable of causing death.
   - Simple: A weapon that can kill someone.
   - _He reached for a lethal concealed beneath his coat._
   - _The smugglers' armory was stocked with lethals of every kind._
3. An allele that kills the organism in which it occurs.
   - Simple: A type of gene that causes the living thing carrying it to die.
   - _Geneticists traced the disorder to a recessive lethal carried by both parents._
   - _Dominant lethals are usually eliminated within a single generation._
4. A long-chain alcohol of the paraffin series that is extracted from spermaceti and forms white crystals.
   - Simple: A white, crystal-like solid alcohol made from a waxy substance found in whales.
   - _Early soap makers prized lethal for the smooth texture it gave their products._
   - _When cooled, the purified lethal settled into glossy white crystals._

## Origin

**Meanings 1–3** — A learned borrowing from Latin "letalis" (deadly, mortal, fatal), from "letum" (death). It was sometimes wrongly spelled "lethalis," based on a supposed link to the Ancient Greek "lethe" (oblivion, forgetfulness).
**Meaning 4** — An abbreviation of "lauric acid ethereal salt," so called because it occurs in the ethereal salt of lauric acid.

Source: DictionaryAI, https://dictionaryai.com/define/lethal (written from Wiktionary data, CC BY-SA 4.0: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/).