prolicide means the crime of destroying one's offspring, either in the womb or after birth. It carries an Arena rating of 1377, earned across 6 head-to-head judged battles.
Among words judged in Lexicurio's Arena, prolicide ranks #37 of 17,131 for Scariest Words, #250 of 17,128 for Most Ponderous Words, #1,462 of 17,132 for Most Betrayed by Its Sound, #2,961 of 17,143 for Best Fossil-Poetry Words.
Why “prolicide” is a great word
PROLICIDE — [Noun] The crime of destroying one's offspring, either before or after birth. From Latin prōlēs ("offspring") + -cide ("killing, killer"). Unlike filicide, which names the murder of an established son or daughter, or infanticide, which targets the newly born, prolicide is the taxonomic shadow over the entire span of potential life. It is the silent calculation in the clinic, the unmarked grave in the woods, and the hollow warmth of a womb that will not quicken—a word for the deliberate severing of a bloodline before its story can be told.
Etymology
From Latin prōlēs (“offspring”) + -cide.
noun
- The crime of destroying one's offspring, either in the womb or after birth.e.g.“PROLICIDE […] Admits of two divisions, fœticide or criminal abortion and infanticide or the destruction of the new born infant.” — 1827, Robley Dunglison, Syllabus of the Lectures on Medical Jurisprudence, page 93:
- One who commits prolicide.e.g.“Perhaps they had accommodated the foregoing statement to the casuistical axiom, non homo est, qui non futurus est, which is a very agreeable one to prolicides.” — 1836, Michael Ryan, A Manual of Medical Jurisprudence and State Medicine, page 283:
Definitions & examples from Wiktionary (CC BY-SA 3.0).
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