populicide

The story

1. Latin · derived frompopulus“community; people; nation”
2. French · borrowed frompopulicide“(noun) slaughter of a people; (adjective) harmful to the people”
3. English todaypopulicide

Probably an unadapted borrowing from French populicide (“(noun) slaughter of a people; (adjective) harmful to the people”) (obsolete, rare), from Latin populus (“community; people; nation”) + French -cide (suffix meaning ‘killing’). The French word populicides was coined by the French journalist and revolutionary François-Noël Babeuf (1760–1797) in 1795 to describe the massacre of 117,000 farmers in the Vendée region during the French Revolution. Equivalent to populace + -icide.

Words from the same roots

First known use, by meaning

• from early 19th c. The deliberate slaughter of a people or a nation.