Word.ws English Dictionary

populicide

Syllables: pop·ul·i·cide/ˈpɒpjʊlɪsaɪd/US/ˈpɑpjələˌsaɪd/

populicide noun: the deliberate slaughter of a people or a nation.

Noun

populicide (countable and uncountable, plural populicides)

  1. (archaic) The deliberate slaughter of a people or a nation.
    • In 1793, the capital vvas menaced vvith the dreadful ſcourge of famine, and if vve are to believe ſome ſpeculative men, this originated in a populicide conſpiracy, on the part of the then exiſting government.[1798, [John Adolphus], “Garin”, in Biographical Anecdotes of the Founders of the French Republic, and of Other Eminent Characters, who have Distinguished Themselves in the Progress of the...
    • Less extensively mischievous, tyrannicide would be less flagitious than populicide; murder of one, though he were a Secretary of State; or—but imagination must stop here—than murder of a promiscuous multitude of unarmed men, women, and children.1824 December 9 (date written), Jeremy Bentham, “[Letter 3153] To the Catholic Association”, in Luke O’Sullivan, Catherine Fuller, editors, The Correspondence of Jeremy Bentham, volume 12 (July 1824...

Examples of populicide in a sentence

  • I hate regicide as I do populicide—deeply, if phrenzied; more deeply, if deliberate.1865 May 2, John Ruskin, “Work and Wages. To the Editor of ‘The Pall Mall Gazette.’”, in [Alexander Dundas Ogilvy Wedderburn], editor...
  • Chancellor [Georg] von Hertling's speech in the Reichstag this week was the most cynical utterance yet made by the German populicides.[1918 February 27, “Increased food production necessary”, in The Washington Post, Washington, D.C.: The Washington Post Company, →ISSN...
  • Finally, Philippe de Villiers announced that a group of lawyers would work out a petition asking the United Nations to recognize the "Vendéen populicide as a crime against humanity."1995, Stephen Laurence Kaplan, “The Vendée: Trope and Idée-Force”, in Farewell, Revolution: Disputed Legacies: France, 1789/1989, Ithaca...

Forms of populicide

pluralpopulicides

Origin of populicide

Probably an unadapted borrowing from French populicide (“(noun) slaughter of a people; (adjective) harmful to the people”) (obsolete, rare), from Latin populus (“community; people; nation”) + French -cide (suffix meaning ‘killing’). The French word populicides was coined by the French journalist and revolutionary François-Noël Babeuf (1760–1797) in 1795 to describe the massacre of 117,000 farmers in the Vendée region during the French Revolution. Equivalent to populace + -icide.

Words formed from populicide

Questions about populicide

What does populicide mean?
Populicide means the deliberate slaughter of a people or a nation.
How do you use populicide in a sentence?
I hate regicide as I do populicide—deeply, if phrenzied; more deeply, if deliberate.
What part of speech is populicide?
Populicide is a noun.
How do you pronounce populicide?
Populicide is pronounced /ˈpɒpjʊlɪsaɪd/ (UK).
What is the plural of populicide?
The plural of populicide is populicides.

Words near populicide in the dictionary

  1. populationwise
  2. populator
  3. populators
  4. populetum
  5. populicidal
  6. populicide
  7. populicides
  8. populin
  9. populiser
  10. populisers
  11. populism

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: populicide (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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Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Vealhurl-populicide.wav.

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