Etymology

genocide

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Today it means: The systematic and deliberate destruction of a group of people; typically by killing substantial numbers of them, on the basis of their ethnicity, religion, nationality, or similar grounds. Full definition →

First used 1940sLatin caedō ← Proto-Italic *kaidō ← Proto-Indo-European *kh₂éydeti
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The story

  1. Proto-Indo-European*ǵenh₁-
  2. Proto-Indo-European*ǵénh₁os
  3. Proto-Hellenic*génos
  4. Ancient Greekγένος (génos)
  5. Proto-Indo-European*kh₂eyd-
  6. Proto-Indo-European*kh₂éydeti
  7. Proto-Italic*kaidō
  8. Latincaedō
  9. English todaygenocide

From the stem of Ancient Greek γένος (génos, “race, kind”) (cognate with Latin gēns (“tribe, clan”), whence genus), corresponding to geno- + -cide (“killing”). Piecewise doublet of gendercide. Compare genticide. Coined by Polish Jewish lawyer Raphael Lemkin in 1943 or 1944 in reference to the Armenian Genocide (then known by other names; for more information, see Terminology of the Armenian genocide on Wikipedia), massacres of Assyrians (such as the Simele massacre and Seyfo) and the Jewish Holocaust.

Words from the same roots

Ancient Greekγένος all →

pathogengeninamphigenousgeno-genosome

First known use, by meaning

  • from 1940s The systematic and deliberate destruction of a group of people; typically by killing substantial numbers of them, on the basis of their ethnicity, religion, nationality, or similar grounds.

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.