gallicide

gallicide noun: the killing of a chicken, especially the former sport of cock-throwing; or, humorously, the killing of a Frenchman.

Noun (1)

gallicide (uncountable)

The killing of a chicken, especially the former sport of cock-throwing; or, humorously, the killing of a Frenchman.
- "A Cock has the Misfortune to be called in Latin by the same Word which signifies a Frenchman: So that nothing could so well represent, or be represented by the One as the Other.... Gallicide, or Cock-Throwing, was first introduced by way of contempt to the French, and to exasperate the Minds of...1737, “An Enquiry into the original Meaning of Cock-Throwing on Shrove-Tuesday”, in The Gentleman's Magazine, volume VII, pages 6–7
- "Gallicide, or cock-throwing, the brutal custom of battering or pelting with sticks or stones a cock tied to a stake, is supposed to have originated in the time of King Edward the Third, when England and France appear to have indulged in provocations of more than ordinary resentment. The latin word...1855, Jacob Henry Burn, A Descriptive Catalogue of the London Traders, Tavern, and Coffee-house Tokens Current in the Seventeenth Century, London: Arthur Taylor, page 82

Gallicide (uncountable)

The chemical phenylmercury monoethanolammonium acetate, used for the control of slime-forming bacteria in pulp and paper mills.
- On the other hand, Gallicide, being a liquid, may be added at any point […]1950, L. D. Post, Paper Mill News: News Magazine of the Paper and Pulp Industry, volume 73, page 12
- For the control of slime-forming bacteria, slug additions of organo-mercurials (Gallicide, Puratized SC or PMA) and Preventol GDC (a dichlorodiphenyl compound) will prove effective.1952, Institute of Paper Chemistry, Abstract Bulletin, volume 23, Wisconsin: Appleton, page 668

Gallicide, or Cock-Throwing, was first introduced by way of contempt to the French, and to exasperate the Minds of the People against that Nation..."1737, “An Enquiry into the original Meaning of Cock-Throwing on Shrove-Tuesday”, in The Gentleman's Magazine, volume VII, pages 6–7:
Scrambling an egg is then gallicide, and crushing acorns, deforestation."1986, Carl Djerassi, “Abortion in the United States: politics or policy?”, in Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, volume 42, number 4, page...
"-cide: the killing or destruction of; or a killer of; or related to the killing of... [gallicide] fowl, especially chicken or turkeys; also gallinicide"2002, Chris Aldrich, The Aldrich Dictionary of Phobias and Other Word Families, Trafford Publishing, page 13:
"Smith had no idea that gallicide would soon become a regular staple of the global poultry trade."2007, Andrew Nikiforuk, Pandemonium: How Globalization and Trade are Putting the World at Risk, page 9:

From Latin gallus (“rooster”) + -cide.

A trade name.

What does gallicide mean?: Gallicide means the killing of a chicken, especially the former sport of cock-throwing; or, humorously, the killing of a Frenchman.
How do you use gallicide in a sentence?: Gallicide, or Cock-Throwing, was first introduced by way of contempt to the French, and to exasperate the Minds of the People against that Nation..."
What part of speech is gallicide?: Gallicide is a noun.

Adapted from Wiktionary: gallicide (page history and authors); Gallicide (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

Last updated: 2026-09-02

Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Rho9998-gallicide.wav.

Cite this entry: “gallicide.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/gallicide. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.