Emortal (adj): being alive without the built-in necessity to die of 'natural causes' (e.g. ageing or disease), while still being subject to the possibility of suffering irreversible fatal damage through violent traumas.

Emortal (noun): one who is emortal.

Emortality (noun): the state of being emortal.

Emortalism (noun): a world-view that considers it desirable that human beings should be emortal.

Emortalist (noun): one who subscribes to the philosophy of emortalism.

Death (noun), Die (verb): cessation of those physical functions required to maintain the complex or network that sustains an individual, and his or her identity and/or continued consciousness and ability to function as what we commonly think of as a 'human being'.

The term 'emortal' was first used by Dr. Alvin Silverstein in his 1979 book Conquest of Death. The first use of the word in a fictional context probably was in the 1984 Mack Reynolds/Dean Ing novel Eternity. More recently Brian Stableford has made extensive use of the concept in a series of science fiction novels.

Emortal is a form of physical longevity, without religious connotations. The means used to achieve an emortal state are usually 'scientific'—though some fringe groups may include elements verging on the mystical; including some that might not have been expected to lean that way.

The concepts associated with emortalism distinguish themselves from those relating to 'immortalism', which traditionally, and also in its more contemporary and apparently non-religious usage, refers to a life without 'death' (whatever that's taken to mean), excepting maybe the voluntary kind.

Virtually all organizations concerned with proselytizing, advocating, supporting, or promoting efforts to make human being emortal, tend to use 'immortality', as well as associated terms like 'immortal' and 'immortalism'.

This is not always a mere oversight: most such organizations indeed aim to promote immortality, that is life without death, as the desirable end-goal. Still, they usually accept that the more 'limited' version, as it is implied in emortalism, may be a necessary step on the way there.