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

The fatality rate among people with Legionnaires' disease is about 10%. —Christina Hall, Freep.com, 5 Mar. 2026

Ski safety experts note that as the number of people setting off into the backcountry has grown rapidly, avalanche fatality rates have not grown along with it. —Sacbee.com, 28 Feb. 2026

In Missouri, traffic fatality rates increased by 11% from 2014 to 2024. —Meg Cunningham, Kansas City Star, 25 Feb. 2026

The disease can spread easily from person to person through contact with bodily fluids and cause minor to severe infections with a fatality rate of between 40% and 70%. —Devika Rao, TheWeek, 29 Jan. 2026

Word History

First Known Use

1866, in the meaning defined above

Rhymes for fatality rate

• borosilicate
• decontaminate
• deoxycholate
• deteriorate
• differentiate
• diisocyanate
• dinoflagellate
• excommunicate
• incapacitate
• insubordinate
• intercorporate
• interpenetrate

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