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Definition of body count
1 : a count of the bodies of killed enemy soldiers
2 : the number of persons involved in a particular activity
Examples of body count in a Sentence
The rising body count fueled opposition to the war.
Recent Examples on the Web Hospitals in Houston are already on the brink of being overwhelmed, and public health experts worry that the pandemic’s body count will soon again be climbing in tandem with the daily case load.
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Washington Post, "National mask mandate could save 5 percent of GDP, economists say," 30 June 2020 Nonetheless, those inside paint a far more devastating portrait of a country overrun with a burgeoning body count, medical facilities brimming beyond the point of capacity, fearful residents hiding in their homes and prisons saturated with the sick.
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Fox News, "Iran rejects international humanitarian aid despite coronavirus death toll," 24 Mar. 2020 By the next morning, the body count in the room rose to three.
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Natalie Gallón, CNN, "Where are the bodies? Missing remains mean no peace for grieving families in Ecuador," 7 May 2020 Trump and company, however, are brazenly attempting to do so even as the body count continues to rise and the economy is still sinking.
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Susan B. Glasser, The New Yorker, "Trump and the 1917 Pandemic That Wasn’t," 30 Apr. 2020 So this Friday won’t be very good as the number of coronavirus cases multiply and the body counts rise, each statistic representing human persons made in the image of God.
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Daniel Darling, National Review, "How Good Friday Helps Us Cope with the Pandemic," 10 Apr. 2020 As the body count mounted in USC’s 41-14 victory over Arizona, coach Clay Helton was forced to play his fifth-string running back Saturday night.
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Los Angeles Times, "Column: USC’s Kenan Christon puts on electric performance in win against Arizona," 20 Oct. 2019 Supernatural series love a surprise fatal body count.
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Ariana Romero, refinery29.com, "Who Dies In Chilling Adventures Of Sabrina Part 3 — & Who Will Stay Dead?," 24 Jan. 2020 One troubled group is the Mothers of Soacha, relatives of poor men killed by the military and falsely identified as guerrillas to boost reported body counts.
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Washington Post, "Colombia’s conflict spills over to museum of memory," 24 Dec. 2019
See MoreThese example sentences are selected automatically from various online news sources to reflect current usage of the word 'body count.' Views expressed in the examples do not represent the opinion of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback.
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Time Traveler for body count
The first known use of body count was in 1962
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