Etymology

social murder

Today it means: The knowing causing of the inevitable premature death of members of an oppressed class by deliberately and structurally exposing them to potentially lethal conditions. Full definition →

German sozialer Mord
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The story

  1. German · calque ofsozialer Mord
  2. English todaysocial murder

Calque of German sozialer Mord, first attested in Friedrich Engels' Die Lage der arbeitenden Klasse in England. Engels attributes the phrase to English workers' newspapers.

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.