genocide

Pluralgenocides

Formsgenocides, genociding, genocided

1. 1
   nouncountable or uncountable

   The systematic and deliberate destruction of a group of people, usually by killing large numbers of them, because of their ethnicity, religion, or nationality.

   International tribunals were established to prosecute those responsible for the genocide.

   Historians continue to document how the genocide was planned and carried out.

   Similarextermination, annihilation, massacre, slaughter, holocaust

   Note

   A word with a known maker: the lawyer Raphael Lemkin, of Polish-Jewish descent, coined it in 1943 or 1944 with the Armenian genocide and the Holocaust in mind, and it appears in Axis Rule in Occupied Europe (1944). It works two ways. As an uncountable noun it names the crime as a category (a policy of genocide). As a countable noun it names a single event (a genocide, the genocide).

2. 2
   noununcountable

   The systematic killing of substantial numbers of people on grounds other than ethnicity, religion, or nationality.

   Debate continues over whether the targeting of a political faction qualifies as genocide.

   The mass executions of landowners were later condemned as genocide.

   Similarextermination, massacre, slaughter

3. 3
   nouncountable or uncountable

   The systematic suppression of a group's ideas, customs, or practices because of their cultural or ethnic origin; also known as culturicide.

   Erasing a community's traditions and forbidding its rituals is a cultural form of genocide.

   The forced assimilation policies were later condemned as genocide against an indigenous culture.

   Similarethnocide, culturicide

   Note

   The sense usually travels with an adjective in front of it. James Stuart Olson and Raymond Wilson's Native Americans in the Twentieth Century (1986) writes of "centuries of cultural genocide." The modifier does real work, because without it a reader will hear the core meaning, the physical destruction of a people. Culturicide is the single-word alternative for the same idea.

4. 4
   verbtransitive

   To deliberately destroy or eliminate an entire group of people; to commit genocide against them.

   The regime set out to genocide the population of the occupied region.

   Warlords sought to genocide a minority they had long persecuted.

   Similarexterminate, annihilate, massacre, slaughter

   Note

   A verb made directly from the noun, with regular forms: genocides, genociding, genocided. It takes a direct object with no preposition, and that object need not be a people. The 1986 hearing Oversight of the Board for International Broadcasting speaks of a government that "genocided the Ukrainian Autocephalous Orthodox Church." The passive occurs too: "not only Jews were genocided," in Get 'Em All! Kill 'Em! (2006).

5. 5
   nouncountable or uncountable

   In roguelike games, the elimination of an entire class of monsters by the player, often achieved through a special item or spell.

   A well-timed genocide can rid the entire level of those troublesome floating eyes.

   Veteran players debate whether spending a genocide on rats is ever worthwhile.

   Note

   Gamers' usage, at home in roguelikes. On the rec.games.roguelike.nethack newsgroup in 2000, Kimmo Kasila says he has been "genocideless" ever since his first ascension, which shows the word comfortable enough to take a suffix. In Gabriel Elvery's 2022 account of Undertale, it names a whole playstyle. That style is set against neutral and pacifist runs, in which some or all monsters are spared.

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