murdrum
murdrum noun: a secret killing, distinguished from simple homicide in that the victim and the killer are unknown.
Noun
murdrum (uncountable)
- A secret killing, distinguished from simple homicide in that the victim and the killer are unknown.
- Death by misadventure or starvation might be a 'murdrum' if there was no presentment of Englishry.1873, Luke Owen Pike, A History of Crime in England
- If the person slain be unknown, then in such case it belongs to the coroners to enter a murdrum on their rolls, according to the statute of King Knut, made on setting out for Denmark, who, for the preservation of his Danes whom he left in England, ordained that whenever an unknown man was slain all...1895, William Joseph Whittaker, The Publications of the Selden Society - Volume 7, page 35
- A fine imposed by the Crown on a manor or district in which such a secret killing had been committed.
- In the case of the murdrum, to which chapter IX. relates, it is customary to consider that because this fine was originally intended to hold communities responsible for order within their boundaries, therefore its enforcement harmed the feudal lords only in so far as it lessened the paying power of...1910, John Franklin Jameson, Henry Eldridge Bourne, Robert Livingston Schuyler, The American Historical Review, page 39
- By the beginning of the thirteenth century the murdrum was being imposed for all cases of sudden or unexpected death, irrespective of whether it was caused by violence or not, unless the complex proof of Englishry could be given.1960, J. D. J. Havard, The detection of secret homicide: a study of the medico-legal system of investigation of sudden and unexplained deaths, page 12
Examples of murdrum in a sentence
- Four things relieve from the judgment of murdrum: the first if the felon be known or the person killed; for if the felon be known then he can be attainted for the felony.1895, William Joseph Whittaker, The Publications of the Selden Society - Volume 7, page 35:
- In 1160 ten marks were paid for a "murdrum" and the pardon given to the Bishop of Winchester.1897, The Wiltshire Archaeological and Natural History Magazine:
- Wherefore, in these days, almost every secret manslaughter is punished as murdrum, except those of whom (as I have said) it is certain that they are of servile condition.1918, G.G. Coulton, Social Life in Britain, page 26:
- By the thirteenth century the collection of murdrum was primarily for the benefit of the Exchequer and significantly added to the burden of the eyre on the localities.2006, Susan Stewart, The 1263 Surrey Eyre, page lxxii:
Origin of murdrum
Borrowing from Medieval Latin murdrum, a Germanic borrowing from Frankish *murþr, *morþr, from Proto-Germanic *murþrą (“murder”). More at murder.
Questions about murdrum
- What does murdrum mean?
- Murdrum means a secret killing, distinguished from simple homicide in that the victim and the killer are unknown.
- How do you use murdrum in a sentence?
- Four things relieve from the judgment of murdrum: the first if the felon be known or the person killed; for if the felon be known then he can be attainted for the felony.
- What part of speech is murdrum?
- Murdrum is a noun.
Words near murdrum in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: murdrum (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.
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