senilicide means killing of old people, especially to conserve resources for younger people. It carries an Arena rating of 1200, earned across 6 head-to-head judged battles.
Among words judged in Lexicurio's Arena, senilicide ranks #18 of 17,131 for Scariest Words, #439 of 17,138 for Most Incisive Words, #679 of 17,128 for Most Ponderous Words, #2,020 of 17,151 for The Improbable.
Why “senilicide” is a great word
The socially sanctioned practice of killing the elderly, often a community’s calculated sacrifice to preserve scarce resources. The term derives from Latin *senilis* (“of or pertaining to an old man, aged”) and *-cida* (“killer, killing”). Unlike *geronticide*, a more general term for killing the old, or *euthanasia*, a voluntary, often medicalized act to end suffering, senilicide is a chilling, collective calculus. It is the ice floe pushed from shore into a dark sea, the ceremonial bowl of hemlock passed by a son to his father, and the silent consensus of a starving tribe to leave the frail behind on the tundra—a grim testament to the moment when care becomes cost, and the bonds of kinship snap under the weight of survival.
Etymology
From Latin senilis + -cida or cognates.
noun
- Killing of old people, especially to conserve resources for younger people.e.g.“Where it was practiced, senilicide was rare except during famines.” — 2004 May 4, “Did Eskimos put their elderly on ice floes to die?”, in The Straight Dope:
Definitions & examples from Wiktionary (CC BY-SA 3.0).
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