Meanings
- not comparablePertaining to or having the nature of urbicide, that being the deliberate “killing” of a city by the razing of distinctive physical manifestations of its urban identity, stifling of the social activity therein, and its general destruction as an edifice of civilisation.
^({1}) In contrast to Martin Shaw, he stresses that urbicidal acts were a distinct feature of that war. ^({2}) In contrast to Shaw, therefore, Coward argues that urbicidal warfare deserves stronger consideration in legal definitions of war crimes.
2004, Stephen Graham, Cities, War, and Terrorism, Blackwell Publishing, →ISBN, page 138, →ISBN2 more examples
Hence the ‘urbicidal’ aspect of the war, destruction of the cities as places of mixing and of centuries-old civilisation, places of openness and of tolerance, destruction of bridges as witnesses of historical exchange and physical bonds between groups presently at war and which the warring élites try to present as historicaly,^([sic]) traditionally enemies.
1998, Nickie Charles, Helen M. Hintjens, Gender, Ethnicity and Political Ideologies, Routledge, →ISBN, page 68, →ISBNThe urbicidal acts included the attempted “murder” of the city virtually and symbolically; its physical destruction by random bombing, shelling, grenading, and the like; its strangling through denial of food, water, and energy; its terrorizing through sniper fire from surrounding hills and bombing of public places;…
2002, Joan Ockman of the Temple Hoyne Buell Center for the Study of American Architecture, Out of Ground Zero: Case Studies in Urban Reinvention, page 141 - not comparableInimical to the vitality of a city.
The method of this urbicidal ignorance is described step by step.
1981, Lawrence Wodehouse, Ada Louise Huxtable, an Annotated Bibliography, Garland Pub., →ISBN, page 67, →ISBN2 more examples
The urbicidal effect of the staggering local property tax rates is aggravated by the large amount of property that, for one reason or another, is tax exempt…
1967: Urban America (Organization), City — volumes 3–4, page 17 (Urban America)This man knows the void; he shows how urban emptiness can be an active, malevolent, urbicidal force.
2006, Marshall Berman, On the Town: One Hundred Years of Spectacle in Times Square, Random House, →ISBN, page xxxiv, →ISBN
Origin
From Latin urb(s) (“city”) + -icidal, literally “city-killing”.
Full word history & related roots →Cite this entry
urbicidal. (n.d.). In WatkinsX Dictionary. Retrieved November 4, 2026, from https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/urbicidal
“urbicidal.” WatkinsX Dictionary, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/urbicidal. Accessed November 4, 2026.
WatkinsX Dictionary, s.v. “urbicidal,” accessed November 4, 2026, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/urbicidal.
Source: urbicidal on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.