ethnocide means the deliberate and systematic destruction of an ethnic group, accomplished either by destroying the members of the group (genocide) or by destroying its cultural identity (culturicide). It carries an Arena rating of 1347, earned across 105 head-to-head judged battles.
Among words judged in Lexicurio's Arena, ethnocide ranks #13 of 17,138 for Most Incisive Words, #67 of 17,128 for Most Ponderous Words, #102 of 17,131 for Scariest Words, #2,653 of 17,151 for The Improbable.
Why “ethnocide” is a great word
ETHNOCIDE — [Noun] The deliberate and systematic destruction of an ethnic group's cultural identity. From the combining form ethno- (from Greek ethnos, "people, nation") and the suffix -cide (from Latin -cidium, "killing, slaying"). First attested in English in 1968. Unlike genocide, which targets the physical body of a people, or assimilation, which may imply a coercive absorption, ethnocide is the calculated murder of a culture. It is the confiscation of sacred drums, the silencing of a mother tongue in schoolyards, and the razing of a temple so that not even its scent lingers—a quieter violence that murders not the body, but the world the body inhabits.
Etymology
From ethno- + -cide.
noun
- The deliberate and systematic destruction of an ethnic group, accomplished either by destroying the members of the group (genocide) or by destroying its cultural identity (culturicide).
Definitions & examples from Wiktionary (CC BY-SA 3.0).
Words closest in meaning
By meaning, not spelling — each word's AI semantic fingerprint, nearest first.
- culturicide 79% match — The systematic destruction of a culture, particularly one unique to a specific ethnicity, or a political, religious, or social group. vs ethnocide →
- ethnogenocide 78% match — ethnocide vs ethnocide →
- genocide 72% match — 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. vs ethnocide →
- ethnosuicide 69% match — The destruction of an ethnic identity by members of that ethnicity. vs ethnocide →
- culturocidal 69% match — Killing or destroying a culture. vs ethnocide →
- culturicidal 65% match — Destroying a culture. vs ethnocide →
- phenocide 62% match — The systematic destruction of people based upon their phenotype. cf genocide vs ethnocide →
- ethnization 62% match — The act or process of making a group into, or of becoming as a group, an ethnicity or distinct people. vs ethnocide →