Word.ws English Dictionary

papicide

papicide noun: the killing of a pope.

Noun

papicide (countable and uncountable, plural papicides)

  1. (uncommon) The killing of a pope.
    • The story, which would certainly have moved to tears the readers of Fr Bresciani’s feuilletons, smacked too much of invention and was too oozing with edification to be credible. If only there had been an actual attempted papicide with witnesses!1964, Carlo Falconi, translated by Muriel Grindrod, “Part I: The Build-up”, in Pope John and the Ecumenical Council: A Diary of the Second Vatican Council, September - December 1962, Cleveland, Oh....
    • If Bernard Bec, Peire de Castanet and Arnaud Garsie were, as it seems, telling the truth, it is possible that there occured^([sic]) at Perugia on 7 July 1304 indeed a case of papicide most foul.2000, Alan Friedlander, chapter 9, in The Hammer of the Inquisitors: Brother Bernard Délicieux and the Struggle against the Inquisition in Fourteenth-Century France, published 2021, →ISBN, page 287
  2. (countable, uncommon) One who kills (or attempts to kill) a pope.
    • The ineffable self-satisfaction displayed by the young Turkish papicide during his interrogation and trial was not unreasonable.1982, Polish Perspectives, volume XXV, Warsaw: Wydawnictwo Wspólczesne RSW Prasa-Książka-Ruch, →ISSN, →OCLC, page 40
    • Ilmari? First name of a would-be Turkish papicide? A Libyan omnicide? No, merely that of an apparently mild-mannered Finn whose studies put him at the crossroads of the major influences so patently reflected in his music—those of Rachmaninoff and of the French Impressionists.1985, Fanfare, volume 8, Tenafly, N.J.: Fanfare, Inc., →ISSN, →OCLC, page 222

Forms of papicide

pluralpapicides
alternative formpapacide

Origin of papicide

From papa- + -icide.

Questions about papicide

What does papicide mean?
Papicide means the killing of a pope.
What part of speech is papicide?
Papicide is a noun.
What is the plural of papicide?
The plural of papicide is papicides.

Words near papicide in the dictionary

  1. Paphos
  2. PAPI
  3. Papiamento
  4. Papiaments
  5. Papiamentu
  6. papicide
  7. papicides
  8. papier collé
  9. papier mache
  10. papier maches
  11. papier-mache

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: papicide (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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