terrorism

Meaning

Noun

• The deliberate commission of an act of violence to create public fear through the suffering of the victims in the furtherance of a political or social agenda.
• The use of unlawful violence against people or property to achieve political objectives.
• A form of psychological manipulation through warfare to the purpose of political or religious gains, by means of deliberately creating a climate of fear amongst the inhabitants of a specific geographical region.

Related

Narrower meaning words

• agroterrorism
• antiterrorism
• bioterrorism
• cyberterrorism
• ecoterrorism
• electronic terrorism
• narcoterrorism

Origin

• From French terrorisme, from terreur + -isme, equivalent to terror + -ism.
• The word first appears in English in 1795 in reference to the Jacobin radicals of France, who ruled during the Reign of Terror.