Word.ws English Dictionary

human shield

human shield noun: civilians which a military group has deliberately placed combat targets near to deter an enemy from attacking those targets.

Noun

human shield (plural human shields)

  1. Civilians which a military group has deliberately placed combat targets near to deter an enemy from attacking those targets.
  2. (figuratively, rhetoric) Third parties used cynically to divert attention away from accusations against oneself.
    • And after the past few days, in which a fleet of Republicans and the president himself have utilized Jews as human shields for racist rhetoric, the Jews are tired, tired, tired of being used as defenses against naked racism, tired of being used to justify conditions at detention camps. Just plain...2019 July 17, Talia Lavin, “When Non-Jews Wield Anti-Semitism as Political Shield”, in GQ

human shield meaning in Arabic, Indonesian, Thai and Vietnamese

human shield in Arabic

civilians placed in or around targets
دِرْع بَشَرِيّ dirʕ bašariyy, دُرُوع بَشَرِيَّة durūʕ bašariyya

human shield in Indonesian

civilians placed in or around targets
perisai manusia, tameng manusia

human shield in Thai

civilians placed in or around targets
โล่มนุษย์ lôo-má-nút

human shield in Vietnamese

civilians placed in or around targets
lá chắn sống
More languagesFewer languages
human shield in Myanmar
လူသားဒိုင်း lusa:duing:

Forms of human shield

pluralhuman shields

Questions about human shield

What does human shield mean?
Human shield means civilians which a military group has deliberately placed combat targets near to deter an enemy from attacking those targets.
What is human shield in Arabic?
Human shield in Arabic is دِرْع بَشَرِيّ (dirʕ bašariyy), دُرُوع بَشَرِيَّة (durūʕ bašariyya). See Human shield meaning in Arabic.
What part of speech is human shield?
Human shield is a noun.
What is the plural of human shield?
The plural of human shield is human shields.

Words near human shield in the dictionary

  1. human safaris
  2. human seminal plasma protein hypersensitivity
  3. human services
  4. human settlement
  5. human settlements
  6. human shield
  7. human shields
  8. human smuggling
  9. human statue
  10. human statues
  11. human terrain

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: human shield (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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