How to Use noncombatant in a Sentence

noncombatant

noun
  • The room is not just for veterans, but for noncombatants, too, caught up in the tragedy of war.
    — Anna Mulrine Grobe, The Christian Science Monitor, 27 Sep. 2024
  • More than two thousand have died and some ten thousand have been injured, many of them noncombatants.
    — Bernard Avishai, The New Yorker, 8 Oct. 2024
  • In both Gaza and the West Bank, noncombatants are among the dead.
    — Dalia Hatuqa, NBC News, 26 Oct. 2023
  • He wouldn’t be permitted to remain a noncombatant for very long.
    — Matthew Campbell, Bloomberg, 22 May 2026
  • But any full-scale attack on Gaza will inevitably take the lives of many hundreds of noncombatants.
    — Ned Temko, The Christian Science Monitor, 11 Oct. 2023
  • The group said its research has shown that up to 9,210 noncombatants had been killed by the end of last year.
    — Washington Post, 6 Mar. 2018
  • In poorly sited and badly run camps, tens of thousands of noncombatants died.
    — Andrea Pitzer, Scientific American, 23 July 2024
  • Both sides have launched multiple strikes against each other from Lebanon, and noncombatants have been killed as a result.
    — Washington Examiner Staff, The Washington Examiner, 16 Mar. 2026
  • The pact has since been a beacon for universal values, such as the innocence of noncombatants in a conflict.
    — The Christian Science Monitor, Christian Science Monitor, 2 Dec. 2025
  • 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.
    — David E. Sanger, New York Times, 19 Oct. 2023
  • He is accused of shooting dead a noncombatant in a wheat field in Uruzgan province in 2012.
    — Rod McGuirk, Los Angeles Times, 12 Sep. 2024
  • The presence of noncombatants is all that has stopped the United States from obliterating the convoy.
    — Rod Nordland, New York Times, 1 Sep. 2017
  • Others detect a growing revulsion against the killing of noncombatants even with conventional weapons.
    — Fred Kaplan, Slate Magazine, 14 Aug. 2017
  • The idea is to create a foolproof (or near foolproof) way of distinguishing insurgents — or at least detainees — from civilian noncombatants.
    — Spencer Ackerman, WIRED, 14 July 2011
  • Israel’s search-and-destroy missions and its intensive bombardments have come at the cost of thousands of women, children and other noncombatants killed.
    — Thomas Fuller, New York Times, 31 Dec. 2023
  • What's needed is not more power, but the ability to place smaller bombs more accurately to minimize harm to civilians and other noncombatants.
    — Kyle Mizokami, Popular Mechanics, 24 Sep. 2018
  • The high civilian death toll, Israeli officials argued, was the consequence of Hamas waging war among noncombatants.
    — Chuck Quirmbach, NPR, 2 Apr. 2024
  • That solidarity has given noncombatants a way to serve the nation and those fighting reassurance that they are supported.
    — Dominique Soguel, The Christian Science Monitor, 3 Apr. 2023
  • Reliable reports document that both sides have quartered troops in or fired from hospitals, blurring the line between combatant and noncombatant.
    — Cynthia Buckley, Washington Post, 9 Apr. 2018
  • The figure does not differentiate between combatants and noncombatants, but officials say that two-thirds of the victims have been women and children.
    — Kate Linthicum, Los Angeles Times, 26 Jan. 2024
  • While technically a noncombatant, Hansen was in the crosshairs of every defender of Okinawa.
    — Justin Kenny, Post-Tribune, 18 May 2018
  • Small, deadly antipersonnel mines, triggered by the weight of the human body, cannot discriminate between combatants and noncombatants.
    — Samuel Granados, Washington Post, 22 July 2023
  • 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.
    — Isobel Koshiw, Washington Post, 24 Oct. 2023
  • The Israeli government insists troops are waging war in accordance with international law to avoid harm to noncombatants.
    — CBS News, 5 Nov. 2023
  • 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.
    — Lily Rothman, Time, 13 Apr. 2018
  • Many have died, including thousands of noncombatants, according to officials at government agencies run by Hamas.
    — Kevin Shalvey, ABC News, 7 Oct. 2025
  • Without going into detail, both treat war as the option of last resort, both try to limit reckless destruction of life and property and both try to minimize injury to noncombatants.
    — Kenneth Seeskin, Chicago Tribune, 11 May 2026
  • 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.
    — New York Times, 10 Sep. 2019
  • If a humanoid robot malfunctions and commits a war crime or kills a noncombatant, is the software programmer or commanding officer held responsible?
    — Charlie Campbell, Time, 10 Mar. 2026
  • Calley, convicted of murdering 22 noncombatants, became the only person found guilty as a result of the incident.
    — Harrison Smith, Washington Post, 14 May 2018

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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