fatality rate

noun

plural fatality rates

: the number of deaths from a specific cause

Last year, South Carolina had the nation's third-highest highway fatality rate, with 1,064 people killed in wrecks on the state's roads.

—Joseph S. Stroud

McGuire is a practitioner of what he calls the king of all extreme sports. BASE—an acronym for building, antenna, span (bridge) and earth (cliffs)—jumping has one of the sporting world's highest fatality rates: in its 18-year history, 46 participants have been killed.

—Karl Taro Greenfield

specifically : case fatality rate

Dysentery, in which fatality rates in untreated cases range as high as 50 percent, is especially dangerous to children.

—James C. Riley

Examples of fatality rate in a Sentence

Recent Examples on the Web

South Burlington also has the lowest pedestrian fatality rate in the country and the 13th-lowest percentage of uninsured motorists. —Laura Begley Bloom, Forbes, 31 Oct. 2024

The disease has an overall fatality rate of just 1%, according to the World Health Organization. —Jen Christensen, CNN, 28 Oct. 2024

The Congo Basin strain has a fatality rate of 10 percent. —David Cox, WIRED, 27 July 2022

The injury and fatality rate is 43 times higher than parachuting from a plane. —Michael Verdon, Robb Report, 30 Oct. 2024

Word History

First Known Use

1866, in the meaning defined above

Medical Definition

fatality rate

noun

: the number of deaths from a specific cause

… the inclusion of air bags and other design improvements in vehicles, the use of seat belts and even the increasing maturity of the driving population have combined to lower the fatality rate on U. S. highways by 29 percent since 1987.

—Stefan Thomke et al., Scientific American

specifically : case fatality rate

Dysentery, in which fatality rates in untreated cases range as high as 50 percent, is especially dangerous to children.

—James C. Riley, The American Historical Review