The worst names need to be reserved for the worst offences.

But which are the worst offences, in terms of causing death and suffering to innocent people?

However that's not the determining factor. It's best not to think of words like that as some kind of badge of infamy. They should rather be used as a way of classifying the activity involved.

So it's better to restrict the word "terrorism" to instances where terror is used as a weapon - deliberately causing death and suffering as a way of making people do things they otherwise would not do.

When you shoot people who are shooting at you, or getting ready to shoot at you, that's not "terrorism", whether you are a regular soldier or an insurgent or whatever. But when you bomb civilians as a way of breaking their morale, that's terrorism, whether the bomb is delivered from an aeroplane or a missile or in a shopping trolley.

And I wouldn't think that organising society in a way that denies adequate health care to many of its citizens in the richest country in the world can really be appropriately termed "terrorism". But that wouldn't be on the grounds that somehow it might not be quite as bad when it comes to causing death and suffering.