How to Use noncombatant in a Sentence
noncombatant
noun
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In both Gaza and the West Bank, noncombatants are among the dead.
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Dalia Hatuqa,
NBC News,
26 Oct. 2023
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The mines pose a threat to noncombatants at sea and on land.
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Kyle Mizokami,
Popular Mechanics,
16 Feb. 2023
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The group said its research has shown that up to 9,210 noncombatants had been killed by the end of last year.
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Washington Post,
6 Mar. 2018
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But any full-scale attack on Gaza will inevitably take the lives of many hundreds of noncombatants.
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Ned Temko,
The Christian Science Monitor,
11 Oct. 2023
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The presence of noncombatants is all that has stopped the United States from obliterating the convoy.
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Rod Nordland,
New York Times,
1 Sep. 2017
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These are his mother and siblings and younger self, in 1968, noncombatants caught in the midst of Nigeria’s civil war over the breakaway region of Biafra.
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Jesse Green,
New York Times,
23 Sep. 2019
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And the final objective is to accomplish all this without bringing more death and misery to noncombatants caught in a world once again on fire.
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David E. Sanger,
New York Times,
19 Oct. 2023
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Seeing that there was an impasse, Kraus made an offer: He and the other Marines would surrender and turn over their equipment if the noncombatants were released.
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Michael S. Rosenwald,
Washington Post,
11 May 2018
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She and her mother and two younger sisters were interned as enemy noncombatants at the Ambarawa prison camp in central Java and spent the next three and a half years in captivity.
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New York Times,
10 Sep. 2019
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Wanton killing of noncombatants, particularly in the twin 1998 bombings of the U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania, roused him from his jihadism.
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Graeme Wood,
WSJ,
31 July 2018
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Ukraine has been lobbying through the Catholic Church for the return of all noncombatants, including cooks, medics and other military personnel who do not fight.
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Isobel Koshiw,
Washington Post,
24 Oct. 2023
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And of course, Israel itself lost nearly 700 civilians in the October 7 attacks, while scores of noncombatants are still held hostage by Hamas and other militant groups.
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Bryan Walsh,
Vox,
27 May 2024
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The high civilian death toll, Israeli officials argued, was the consequence of Hamas waging war among noncombatants.
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Chuck Quirmbach,
NPR,
2 Apr. 2024
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Israel’s search-and-destroy missions and its intensive bombardments have come at the cost of thousands of women, children and other noncombatants killed.
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Thomas Fuller,
New York Times,
31 Dec. 2023
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Alessandro Nivola channels James Caan as a policeman who compensates cruelly for the drubbing that his self-image takes as a noncombatant owing to flat feet.
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Richard Brody,
The New Yorker,
10 Oct. 2022
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The idea is to create a foolproof (or near foolproof) way of distinguishing insurgents — or at least detainees — from civilian noncombatants.
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Spencer Ackerman,
WIRED,
14 July 2011
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And yet noncombatants are killed in the course of war in countless other fashions, and attempting to rank the cruelest ways to kill is an exercise in both futility and inhumanity.
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Lily Rothman,
Time,
13 Apr. 2018
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While technically a noncombatant, Hansen was in the crosshairs of every defender of Okinawa.
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Justin Kenny,
Post-Tribune,
18 May 2018
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But the laws of war, which forbid targeting noncombatants or harming prisoners, are essential to how the United States distinguishes its own use of force from that of rogue states and terrorists.
—
Matthieu Aikins Victor J. Blue Peter Ganim Krish Seenivasan Steven Szczesniak,
New York Times,
22 May 2024
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What's needed is not more power, but the ability to place smaller bombs more accurately to minimize harm to civilians and other noncombatants.
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Kyle Mizokami,
Popular Mechanics,
24 Sep. 2018
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After declaring himself a noncombatant in one of the culture wars, President Trump, with strong support from religious conservatives, has joined the battle with aplomb.
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David Weigel,
Washington Post,
26 July 2017
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The figure does not differentiate between combatants and noncombatants, but officials say that two-thirds of the victims have been women and children.
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Kate Linthicum,
Los Angeles Times,
26 Jan. 2024
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My 30 years in the Air Force showed me the lengths this nation and its allies go to in an effort to reduce or eliminate civilian casualties; often avoiding hitting a significant target due to noncombatants in the area.
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Chris Eddy,
Sun Sentinel,
10 July 2024
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Others detect a growing revulsion against the killing of noncombatants even with conventional weapons.
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Fred Kaplan,
Slate Magazine,
14 Aug. 2017
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Any word that came down the chain of command dictating the eradication of the My Lai hamlet and its inhabitants, who were noncombatants, was obviously unlawful.
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Smithsonian,
24 Feb. 2018
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Personnel tasked with portraying noncombatants capture photos and videos of troop locations and equipment, and upload the imagery to a mock social network called Fakebook.
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Alex Horton,
Washington Post,
22 Feb. 2024
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Calley, convicted of murdering 22 noncombatants, became the only person found guilty as a result of the incident.
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Harrison Smith,
Washington Post,
14 May 2018
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Eager to win civilian support and bolster enlistments, military leaders on both sides had a strong incentive not to pillage the property or endanger the lives of noncombatants.
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A. Roger Ekirch,
WSJ,
22 Aug. 2017
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The job of writing the official ballot descriptions should be turned over to a neutral noncombatant such as the nonpartisan state Legislative Analyst’s Office.
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George Skelton,
Los Angeles Times,
12 Nov. 2020
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By embedding in social institutions, such as schools, universities, charities, and religious congregations, terrorist groups become a part of the fabric of communities, better able to win more recruits and the support of noncombatants.
—
Robert A. Pape,
Foreign Affairs,
21 June 2024
Some of these examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'noncombatant.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.
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