reginacide

Noun

reginacide (countable and uncountable, plural reginacides)

1. (countable, uncommon) One who kills a queen.
   • However, my old enemy, Miss [Edith] Sitwell, is now enthroned. I was not at the coronation, I am not among her subjects. But I have no inclination left to be a reginacide or even a jeering republican.1950, Geoffrey Grigson, The Crest on the Silver: An Autobiography, London: Cresset Press, page 167
   • Another report connects the incident with the trial of the would-be reginacide John Somervyle (1 Anderson 106).1979, John Bellamy, “Notes”, in The Tudor Law of Treason: An Introduction (Studies in Social History), London: Routledge & Kegan Paul; Toronto, Ont.; Buffalo, N.Y.: University of Toronto Press...
2. (uncommon) The killing of a queen (female monarch or wife of a king).
   • [A sketch of Edward Oxford’s attempted assassination of Queen Victoria.]1840, The Reginacide, or, An Attack on the Constitution, London: H. Hilliard, […]
   • It is related that once upon a time in a small room of a large house three little girls were seated. They were pretty, they were poor, and they were princesses. Before them stood a fat man with a white beard. […] To the first he said: You will be a duchess and be burned to death. To the second: You...1898 September 24, Edgar Saltus, “The Empress of Austria”, in Robert J[oseph] Collier, editor, Collier’s Weekly: An Illustrated Journal of Art, Literature and Current Events, volume XXI, number 25...
3. (uncommon) The killing of a queen (reproductive female insect).
   • But the wasps make no such migration. The males and the old queens and workers all die when the autumn frosts set in, while the young queens, which have yet to lay their eggs, hie away to find protection in some quiet nook, where they remain until the first bright days of spring. It is then that...1886 December 2, F. Maule Campbell, “The Habits and Economy of Our Social Wasps”, in John Hopkinson, editor, Transactions of the Hertfordshire Natural History Society and Field Club, volume IV...
   • How can I “sprinkle peppermint on the bees” between the frames of the hive? I suppose I am to move them all from their places in order to do it, and I must also more them in order to find the queen and commit reginacide.1898 July 5, R. C. A., “Strengthening Swarms”, in Tho[ma]s W[illia]m Cowan, W[illiam] Broughton Carr, editors, The British Bee Journal, and Bee-Keepers’ Adviser, volume XXVI (January–December, 1898)...