(~s)
Frequency: The word is one of the 1500 most common words in English.
1.
A ~ is someone who has been hurt or killed.
Not all the ~s survived...
Statistically our chances of being the ~s of violent crime are remote.
N-COUNT
2.
A ~ is someone who has suffered as a result of someone else’s actions or beliefs, or as a result of unpleasant circumstances.
He was a ~ of racial prejudice...
Infectious diseases are spreading among many of the flood ~s.
N-COUNT
3.
If you fall ~ to something or someone, you suffer as a result of them, or you are killed by them.
In the early 1960s, Blyton fell ~ to Alzheimer’s disease...
PHRASE: V inflects, PHR n