• Nonkilling

    Alternative forms

    Origin

    - + killing

    Full definition of nonkilling

    Adjective

    nonkilling

    1. Not engaging in killing.
      • 1976, Kenneth Evan Moyer, The psychobiology of aggression‎, Hunger does not normally induce frog killing in a nonkilling laboratory rat. However, if that rat has had the experience of watching a rat kill frogs, ....
      • 2001, Jeff Evans, Undoing time: American prisoners in their own words‎, I'm a nonkilling accomplice in a felony murder — a robbery-murder. ... It's a defense to felony murder, for nonkilling accomplices
      • 2007, 8th World Summit of Nobel Peace Laureates, Charter for a World Without Violence, (...) we encourage scientific research (...) to aid us in the transition to nonviolent, and nonkilling societies

    Noun

    nonkilling

    (usually uncountable; plural nonkillings)
    1. A precept or worldview that affirms the possibility of a society where killing is absent.
      • 1944, Louise Saxe Eby, The quest for moral law‎, One element which is valid without reference to this Indian triad of premises is the emphasis upon ahimsa, nonkilling and noninjury of any living creature
      • 1963, w, Disciplines of the Spirit‎, Nonviolence and nonkilling mean, therefore, essentially the same
      • 1999, Suwanna Satha-Anand, The East Asian challenge for human rights‎ Chapter Looking to Buddhism to Turn Back Prostitution in Thailand, In the latter's opinion, the first precept of nonkilling is but another expression of the right to life.
      • 2002, John F. Kavanaugh, Who count as persons?, The principle of nonkilling is not a recommendation of passivity
      • 2002, w, Nonkilling Global Political Science, The spirit and reality of nonkilling is the basic law of human life
      • 2004, w, Taking Our Places: The Buddhist Path to Truly Growing Up‎, Speaking about this precept of nonkilling, he told us about all the killing that he had done that very day as he drove his mower through a thick field of
      • 2008, w, Global Nonkilling Leadership First Forum Proceedings, A world of love, compassion, forgiveness and nonkilling
    2. Lack of killing; permitting to live.
      • 1993, Ven. S. Dhammika, Seven Pillar Edicts, 7, ... respect of harmlessness to living beings and nonkilling of living beings.
      • 1994, Grolier Incorporated, Academic American encyclopedia, Buddhist belief inculcates nonkilling of sentient life ...
      • 2002, Glenn D. Paige, Nonkilling Global Political Science, ... but nonkilling of humans is a minimum characteristic
    3. (countable) An action or occurrence other than a direct killing (but possibly having a similar effect).
      • 1991, w, Religious Convictions and Political Choice‎, ... then its death is a moral wrong even if the result of "nonkillings" will be a marked decrease in the population of that part of the animal kingdom.
      • 1994, w, Patterns in the mind: language and human nature‎, But actions in the world don't come neatly dividing into killings and nonkillings: the gray area of the concept shades smoothly
      • 2008, Heinz Duthel, Guilty as Charged! A Case for the International Criminal Court‎, This also includes nonkillings that in the end eliminate the group, such as preventing births or forcibly transferring children out of the group
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