principicide
English
Etymology
From Latin prī̆nceps + -icide.
Noun
principicide (uncountable) (rare)
- The killing of a prince.
- 1868, Frederic R. Lees, “The Sermon in Relation to Facts”, in True versus False: Bible-Temperance: An Analysis of Vicar Jeffcock’s Sermon on “The Temperance Movement and Christian Liberty.”, London: Pitman, […]. Warwick Savage, […]; Dawson, […]; Wilbraham, […]; G. Turner, […], page 15:
- As it was not the ‘bullet,’ or the ‘pistol,’ or the ‘powder,’ that animated the Principicide, so it is not the ‘sumptuous dinner’—not the fish, flesh, fowl, and good plum-pudding, that tends to increase the appetite for them.
- 1881 July 18, St. James’s Gazette, quoted in 1886, “prĭn-çĭp’-ĭ-çíde”, in [Robert Hunter], editor, The Encyclopædic Dictionary: A New and Original Work of Reference to All the Words in the English Language, […], London; Paris; New York, N.Y.; Melbourne, Vic.: Cassell & Company, Limited, volume V, part II, page 660, column 2:
- The chances of immediate escape for a principicide must be taken as very small.
- 1919, Eugene Pivany, “Appendix B. Roumania’s Territorial Claims. [From a treatise entitled “Roumania in Hungary,” by Eugene Pivany.]”, in Treaty of Peace with Germany: Extracts from Hearing Before the Committee on Foreign Relations, United States Senate; Sixty-Sixth Congress, First Session, Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, page 989:
- The Roumanians hold the world record for principicide, or the assassination of princes, with Serbia—whose record in this regard is not to be despised, either—a bad second.
- 1997, Julian Bennett, Optimus Princeps: A Life and Times, Bloomington, Ind; Indianapolis, Ind.: Indiana University Press, →ISBN, page 36:
- Both of these stories, that he was exiled or placed in terror of his life, belong to a recognized genre invented to justify the principicide and yet continue the imperial system.
- 2005, M. J. Trow, Maxwell’s Mask, Long Preston, North Yorkshire, England: Magna Large Print Books, published 2008, →ISBN, page 29:
- It was a terrible, but all too excusable crime, principicide.
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Related terms
- prince
- princeps