Deadly and Fatal

Deadly

Deadly adjective - Likely to cause or capable of causing death.
Usage example: the doctors were alarmed about the outbreak of the deadly new virus

Fatal is a synonym for deadly in lethal topic. In some cases you can use "Fatal" instead an adjective "Deadly", when it comes to topics like live, property, serious, dangerous. popular alternative

Nearby Word: dead

Fatal

Fatal adjective - Likely to cause or capable of causing death.
Usage example: that snake's venom is fatal unless the victim is given the antidote almost immediately

Deadly is a synonym for fatal in lethal topic. You can use "Deadly" instead an adjective "Fatal", if it concerns topics such as live, property, serious, dangerous. popular alternative

Both words in one sentence

  • Shaped Like Itself In a 2005 segment on avian flu, The Daily Show correspondent Rob Corddry described the disease thusly: "A fatal killer that, when lethal, can be deadly."
  • Recap / Doctor Who: The Curse of Fatal Death Department of Redundancy Department: The title (being that any death is, by definition, fatal), in a parody of similarly redundant classic title "The Deadly Assassin".
  • The canister being labelled "deadly helium" suggests the writers thought the idea wasn't supposed to make sense, but that much helium really would be fatal: even if it isn't poisonous, displacing that much oxygen would cause asphyxiation.
Cite this Source
Fatal and Deadly. (2016). Retrieved 2026, July 21, from https://thesaurus.plus/related/deadly/fatal
Deadly & Fatal. N.p., 2016. Web. 21 Jul. 2026. <https://thesaurus.plus/related/deadly/fatal>.
Fatal or Deadly. 2016. Accessed July 21, 2026. https://thesaurus.plus/related/deadly/fatal.
Google Ngram Viewer shows how "deadly" and "fatal" have occurred on timeline