▪ I. regicide1
(ˈrɛdʒɪsaɪd)
[f. L. rēgi-, stem of rex king + -cide 1: cf. F. regicide (16th c.).]
1. One who kills a king, esp. his own king; one who commits the crime of regicide.
| a 1548 Hall Chron., Hen. IV 14 b, Our posterite shal be reproved as children of Homecides, ye of Regicides & prince quellers. 1607–15 [see regnicide]. 1651 Hobbes Govt. & Soc. xiv. §20. 229 Of which sort are Traytors, Regicides, and such as take up armes against the City. 1690 Dryden Don Sebastian iv. iii, That I miss'd [your life] Was the propitious errour of my fate, Not of my Soul, my Soul's a Regicide. |
2. spec. a. Eng. Hist. One of those who took part in the trial and execution of Charles I.
| 1654 Evelyn Diary 27 Aug., He who publish'd those bold sermons of..the Jewes crucifying Christ, applied to the wicked regicides. 1660 Ibid. 11 Oct., The Regicides who sat on the life of our late King, were brought to tryal in the Old Bailey. 1679 in Somers Tracts I. 51 When there are still so many of the old Regicides not only alive, but in Vogue and Authority. a 1715 Burnet Own Time ii. (1724) I. 162 The Regicides were at that time odious beyond all expression. 1818 Cruise Digest (ed. 2) I. 374 Where by the statute 12 Cha. II. all the lands, tenements, and hereditaments of the regicides were forfeited to the Crown. 1874 Green Short Hist. ix. §2. 605 In the punishment of the Regicides indeed, a Presbyterian might well be as zealous as a cavalier. |
b. Fr. Hist. One of those Revolutionists concerned in the execution of Louis XVI.
| 1796 Burke Regic. Peace i. (1892) 21 The Regicides were the first to declare war. We are the first to sue for peace. 1809 Syd. Smith Wks. (1859) I. 161/1 The regicides of France were poor theatrical imitators. 1848 W. K. Kelly tr. Le Blanc's Hist. Ten Y. II. 508 The king had granted a pardon to Meunier who had been condemned by the Court of Peers as a regicide. |
3. attrib. passing into adj.
| c 1645 Howell Lett. i. xviii. (1650) 30 The Regicide villain was apprehended. 1790 Burke Fr. Rev. 108 A groupe of regicide and sacrilegious slaughter. 1796 ― Regic. Peace i. (1892) 25 The Regicide Directory..charge us with eluding our declarations. 1804 W. Taylor in Ann. Rev. II. 244 The Cordeliers were the regicide portion of the Jacobins. 1839 Marryat Phant. Ship viii, The murder of his regicide ambassador. |
▪ II. regicide2
(ˈrɛdʒɪsaɪd)
[f. as prec. + -cide 2.]
The killing or murder of a king.
| 1602 Warner Alb. Eng. ix. li. 232 That doth Rebellion, Regecide, and breach of Othes allow. 1644 Sir E. Dering Prop. Sacr. b iv, The first Regicide..was that of the Emperour Mauritius. 1683 Evelyn Diary 12 Feb., The late Rebells usurpation and regicide. 1725 Pope Odyss. i. 48 Did fate, or we, when great Atrides died, Urge the bold traitor to the regicide? 1796 Burke Regic. Peace i. (1892) 8 The Republick of Regicide..has actually conquered the finest parts of Europe. 1816 Scott Antiq. xviii, A crime only inferior to sacrilege, or regicide. 1884 Symonds Shaks. Predec. xv. 662 Marlowe..shows Edward smothered, sparing only one incident of that unnatural regicide. |