soft kill

noun — 2 senses

soft kill

noun
1

Government, Military, Politics, War The neutralization of an incoming munition by avoiding it rather than destroying it.

2

Idiomatic A murder that does not leave behind any physical evidence, because the perpetrator carried out the crime by using their bare hands, as opposed to a weapon.

  • Police concluded that she had been the victim of a soft kill, since she had been strangled to death.

Entry derived from the Wiktionary, under licence CC BY-SA 4.0 — list of authors.