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Murder vs Accident - What's the difference?

murder | accident |

In uncountable terms the difference between murder and accident

is that murder is the crime of deliberate killing of another human while accident is chance.

As nouns the difference between murder and accident

is that murder is an act of deliberate killing of another being, especially a human while accident is an unexpected event with negative consequences occurring without the intention of the one suffering the consequences.

As a verb murder

is to deliberately kill (a person or persons).

murder

English

(wikipedia murder)

Noun

  • (label) An act of deliberate killing of another being, especially a human.
  • *{{quote-book, year=1927, author= F. E. Penny
  • , chapter=4, title= Pulling the Strings , passage=The case was that of a murder . It had an element of mystery about it, however, which was puzzling the authorities. A turban and loincloth soaked in blood had been found; also a staff.}}
  • * 1984 , Humphrey Carpenter, Mari Prichard, The Oxford companion to children's literature , page 275:
  • It may be guessed, indeed, that this was the original form of the story, the fairy being the addition of those who considered Jack's thefts from (and murder of) the giant to be scarcely justified without her.
  • * 2003 , Paul Ruditis, Star Trek Voyager: Companion (ISBN 0743417518), page 131:
  • Captain Sulu, who served under the legendary James T. Kirk for many years, disobeys Starfleet orders in order to try and help Kirk and another old shipmate, Dr. McCoy, who have been imprisoned for the murder of the Klingon chancellor.
  • * 2011 , Carlene Brennen, Hemingway's Cats (ISBN 1561644897), page 161:
  • Dr. Herrera also knew Hemingway had held Batista's army personally responsible for the brutal murders of his dogs, Blackie (Black Dog) and Machakos.
  • (label) The crime of deliberate killing of another human.
  • * {{quote-news, date=21 August 2012, author=Ed Pilkington, newspaper=The Guardian
  • , title= Death penalty on trial: should Reggie Clemons live or die? , passage=Reggie Clemons has one last chance to save his life. After 19 years on death row in Missouri for the murder of two young women, he has been granted a final opportunity to persuade a judge that he should be spared execution by lethal injection.}}
  • * {{quote-magazine, date=2013-07-20, volume=408, issue=8845, magazine=(The Economist)
  • , title= Old soldiers? , passage=Whether modern, industrial man is less or more warlike than his hunter-gatherer ancestors is impossible to determine.
  • The commission of an act which abets the commission of a crime the commission of which causes the death of a human.
  • Something terrible to endure.
  • (label) A group of crows;
  • *
  • * {{quote-book, 2001, (Daniel Handler), The Vile Village, isbn=0064408655, page=76
  • , passage=Without the murder of crows roosting in its branches, Nevermore Tree looked as bare as a skeleton.}}

    Usage notes

    * Adjectives often applied to "murder": atrocious, attempted, brutal, cold-blooded, double, heinous, horrible, premeditated, triple, terrible, unsolved.

    Synonyms

    * (act of deliberate killing) homicide, manslaughter, assassination * (group of crows) flock

    Derived terms

    * attempted murder * cry blue murder * first-degree murder * get away with murder * mass murder * murderer * murderess * murder in the first degree * murder in the second degree * murderize * murder one * murderous * murdersome * murder weapon * murder will out * second-degree murder * wink murder

    Verb

    (en verb)
  • To deliberately kill (a person or persons).
  • The woman found dead in her kitchen was murdered by her husband.
  • (transitive, sports, figuratively, colloquial) To defeat decisively.
  • Our team is going to murder them.
  • To botch or mangle
  • * {{quote-book, 1892, William Shepard Walsh, Handy-book of Literary Curiosities citation
  • , passage=Dr. Caius, the Frenchman in the play, and Evans the Welshman, "Gallia et Guallia," succeed pretty well in their efforts to murder the language.}}
  • (figuratively, colloquial) To kick someone's ass]] or [[chew out, chew someone out (used to express one’s anger at somebody).
  • He's torn my best shirt. When I see him, I'll murder him!
  • (figuratively, colloquial, British) to devour, ravish.
  • I could murder a hamburger right now.

    Synonyms

    * (deliberately kill) assassinate, kill, massacre, slaughter * (defeat decisively) thrash, trounce, wipe the floor with * kill

    Anagrams

    * (l) English collective nouns

    accident

    Noun

  • An unexpected event with negative consequences occurring without the intention of the one suffering the consequences.
  • * c.1603 , (William Shakespeare), , I-iii,
  • Wherein I spake of most disastrous chances, / Of moving accidents by flood and field
  • * {{quote-magazine, year=2013, month=July-August, author= Philip J. Bushnell
  • , magazine=(American Scientist), title= Solvents, Ethanol, Car Crashes & Tolerance , passage=Surprisingly, this analysis revealed that acute exposure to solvent vapors at concentrations below those associated with long-term effects appears to increase the risk of a fatal automobile accident . Furthermore, this increase in risk is comparable to the risk of death from leukemia after long-term exposure to benzene, another solvent, which has the well-known property of causing this type of cancer.}}
  • Any chance event.
  • (uncountable) Chance.
  • * c.1861-1863 , (Richard Chevenix Trench), in 1888, Letters and memorials , Volume 1,
  • Thou cam'st not to thy place by accident , / It is the very place God meant for thee;
  • *
  • (transport, vehicle) An unintended event such as a collision that causes damage or death.
  • Any property, fact, or relation that is the result of chance or is nonessential.
  • * 1883 , , Social life in Greece from Homer to Menander? ,
  • This accident , as I call it, of Athens being situated some miles from the sea, which is rather the consequence of its being a very ancient site,
  • (euphemistic) An instance of incontinence.
  • * 2009 , Marcia Stedron, My Roller Coaster Life as an Army Wife , Xlibris Corporation, ISBN 1462817890, page 56:
  • We weren’t there long when Karin asked about our dog. When we told her Chris was in the car, she insisted we bring him up to the apartment. I rejected her offer and said he might have an accident on the carpet and I didn’t want to worry about it.
  • (euphemistic) An unintended pregnancy.
  • (philosophy, logic) A quality or attribute in distinction from the substance, as sweetness'', ''softness .
  • * 1902 , William James, The Varieties of Religious Experience , Folio Society 2008, page 171:
  • If they went through their growth-crisis in other faiths and other countries, although the essence of the change would be the same, its accidents would be different.
  • (grammar) A property attached to a word, but not essential to it, as gender, number, case.
  • (geology) An irregular surface feature with no apparent cause.
  • (heraldry) A point or mark which may be retained or omitted in a coat of arms.
  • (legal) casus; such unforeseen, extraordinary, extraneous interference as is out of the range of ordinary calculation.
  • (military) An unplanned event that results in injury (including death) or occupational illness to person(s) and/or damage to property, exclusive of injury and/or damage caused by action of an enemy or hostile force.
  • (uncountable, philosophy, uncommon) Appearance, manifestation.
  • * 14thC , (Geoffrey Chaucer), '' in ''(The Canterbury Tales) ,
  • These cookes how they stamp, and strain, and grind, / And turne substance into accident , / To fulfill all thy likerous talent!
  • * 1677 , Heraclitus Christianus: or, the Man of Sorrow , chapter 3, page 14:
  • But as to Man, all the Fruits of the Earth, all sorts of Herbs, Plants and Roots, the Fishes of the Sea, and the Birds of the Air do not suffice him, but he must disguise, vary, and sophisticate, change the substance into accident , that by such irritations as these, Nature might be provoked, and as it were necessitated.
  • * 1989 , Iysa A. Bello, The medieval Islamic controversy between philosophy and orthodoxy , page 55:
  • Nonetheless, those who have no evidence of the impossibility of the transformation of accident into substance believe that it is death itself which will be actually transformed into a ram on the Day of Resurrection and then be slaughtered.
  • * 2005 , Muhammad Ali Khalidi, Medieval Islamic philosophical writings , page 175:
  • It would also follow that God ought to be able to transmute genera, converting substance into accident , knowledge into ability, black into white, and sound into smell, just as he can turn the inanimate into animate
  • * 2010 , T. M. Rudavsky, Maimonides , page 142:
  • nor can God effect the transmutation of substances (from accident' into substance, or substance into '''accident''', or substance without ' accident ).

    Synonyms

    * (unexpected event that takes place without foresight or expectation) befalling, chance, contingency, casualty, mishap * (law) casus

    Derived terms

    * accidental * accident of birth * by accident * freak accident

    References

    * Elisabetta Lonati, "Allas, the shorte throte, the tendre mouth": the sins of the mouth in ''The Canterbury Tales'', in ''Thou sittest at another boke , volume 3 (2008, ISSN 1974-0603), page 253: "the cooks "turnen substance into accident" (Pd 539), transform the raw material, its natural essence, into the outward aspect by which it is known." * Barbara Fass Leavy, To Blight With Plague: Studies in a Literary Theme (1993), page 47: *: To turn substance into accident is to give external form to what previously was unformed, to transform spirit into matter, to reduce eternal truths to their ephemeral physical manifestations.