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 National Center for Health Statistics reports that there is a fatality rate of one in 500,000 for both sky divers and bungee jumpers. —Marni Rose McFall, MSNBC Newsweek, 7 May 2025

Since then, there have been 18 additional outbreaks, ranging in size from one case to as many as 252 cases in the largest and deadliest outbreak (90% fatality rate), which occurred in Angola in 2004-5. —Mark Kortepeter, Forbes.com, 7 Apr. 2025

The disease has a nearly 40% fatality rate in those who are infected. —Melissa Rudy, FOXNews.com, 7 Apr. 2025

Measles normally has a fatality rate of about one to three deaths out of every 1,000 children infected. —Nathaniel Weixel, The Hill, 16 Apr. 2025

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