Terrorism was among our top lookups on March 20th, 2018, following news reports that White House spokeswoman Sarah Sanders stated that the administration did not consider recent bombings in Austin, Texas to be connected to terrorism.
“We are committed to bringing perpetrators of these heinous acts to justice. There is no apparent nexus to terrorism at this time,” White House spokesman Sarah Sanders said in a Twitter post.
— Jon Herskovitz & Jim Forsyth, Reuters (reuters.com), 20 Mar. 2018
We define terrorism as “the systematic use of terror especially as a means of coercion.” Some have held that the bombings are in fact terrorism, and have questioned whether the acts should be modified by the adjective domestic.
The relevant sense of domestic in domestic terrorism is one we define as “of, relating to, or originating within a country and especially one's own country.” These two words have been paired with each other since at least the middle of the 19th century.
Had that been the case, half the misfortunes originating with the subserviency and tergiversation of small states driven by domestic terrorism to group around Prussia, and to excite her to exercise pretensions repudiated by all states having a spark left of independence or nationality, would have been averted.
— The Morning Chronicle (London, Eng.), 3 Dec. 1850
