Definitions
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.
- noun A person who is present at an event without participating in it.
from The Century Dictionary.
- noun One who stands near; a spectator; a chance looker-on; hence, one who has no concern with the business being transacted.
- noun One of the highest order of penitents in the discipline of the early church. See
consistentes .
from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.
- noun One who stands near; a spectator; one who has no concern with the business transacting.
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.
- noun a person who, although
present at someevent , does nottake part in it; anobserver orspectator
from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.
- noun a nonparticipant spectator
Etymologies
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License
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Examples
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I will use the term participation unit to refer both to encounters and to unengaged participants; the term bystander will be used to refer to any individual present who is not a ratified member of the particular encounter in question, whether or not he is currently a member of some other encounter.
Behavior in Public Places ERVING GOFFMAN 1963
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The first version tells us something that should be obvious: this bystander is surprised.
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"He must have played rugby for years to have developed reflexes like that," a bystander is quoted by Reuters as saying.
Baby Falls From 8th Floor Paris Apartment, Lives The Huffington Post News Team 2010
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"He must have played rugby for years to have developed reflexes like that," a bystander is quoted by Reuters as saying.
Baby Falls From 8th Floor Paris Apartment, Lives The Huffington Post News Team 2010
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You're never put into the position of agonising over whether you should kill one innocent person to save ten - killing an innocent bystander is wrong in the trivial sense that falling off a ledge is wrong.
I play videogames so you don't have to amuchmoreexotic 2008
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The episode where Sam releases suspects for lack of evidence, against the intuition of his boss who wants to plant evidence on them, only to have them kill an innocent bystander, is particularly thought-provoking.
Why I Hate Time Travel Stories | Solar Flare: Science Fiction News 2006
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Go ahead and call me a misguided Westerner if you like, or even a bleeding heart; I much prefer those titles to "bystander" -- innocent or not.
Kristi York Wooten: The Sachs-Moyo-Easterly Aid Debate: An Activist's Perspective 2009
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i like seeing these pics, but i cant figure out why you would want to change a "target" to an innocent bystander, is this something for the bad guys to practice on?
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i like seeing these pics, but i cant figure out why you would want to change a "target" to an innocent bystander, is this something for the bad guys to practice on?
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Responsible adults have been caught up in bystander apathy, so underdeveloped teen age brains, I just don’t know.
Mamas, Don’t Let Your Babies Grow Up To Be Monsters | Her Bad Mother 2009
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