-cide, suffix
(saɪd)
1. a. F. -cide, L. -cīda cutter, killer, slayer, f. cædĕre, in comp. -cīdĕre to cut, kill, as in homicīda, parricīda, mātricīda, frātricīda, sorōricīda, tyrannicīda, etc., slayer of a man, father, mother, brother, sister, tyrant, etc.; also lapi(di)cīda, stone-cutter, etc. Most of the L. words having the sense ‘slayer, murderer’, have come down into Romanic and English, where new combinations have also been formed on the same type, notably regicide and suicide; filicide has also been used; and many occasional forms appear as jocose nonce-words, e.g. apicide, avicide, canicide, ceticide, muricide, perdricide, tauricide, vaticide, verbicide; or, still more ludicrously, birdicide, prenticecide, suitorcide, etc. Also applied to preparations destructive of animal or vegetable life, as algicide, fungicide, germicide, insecticide, pesticide.
| 1866 Lond. Rev. 23 June 697/2 A charming garrulity far more attractive than the yarn of the venerable birdicide [the ‘Ancient Mariner’]. 1797 Canning, etc. Anti-jacobin 20 Nov. (heading), Mrs. Brownrigg, the ‘Prentice-cide’. |
2. a. F. -cide, L. -cīdium cutting, killing, of same deriv. as 1; and, as the name of the action, possible wherever the name of the actor in -cīda was in use; e.g. homicīdium, parricīdium, mātricīdium, etc.; also sometimes independently as in bōvicīdium slaughter of oxen, etc. In English, as generally used as sense 1, the two implying each other, as in ‘the parricide is he who commits parricide’, etc.