homicide

American  

[hom-uh-sahyd, hoh-muh-] / ˈhɒm əˌsaɪd, ˈhoʊ mə- /

noun

• homicides
  plural

1. the killing of one human being by another.

2. a person who kills another; murderer.

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homicide British  

/ ˈhɒmɪˌsaɪd /

noun

1. the killing of a human being by another person

2. a person who kills another

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homicide Cultural  

1. The killing of one person by another, whether intended (murder) or not (manslaughter). Not all homicide is unlawful; killing in self-defense, for example, is not a crime.

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Other Word Forms

Derived Forms

• self-homicide
  noun

Inflected Forms

Nouns

• homicides
  plural

Etymology

Origin of homicide

First recorded in 1325–75; Middle English, from Middle French, from Latin homicīdium “a killing,” homicīda “killer,” equivalent to homi- (combining form of homō “man”) + -cīdium, -cīda, noun suffix; see -cide

Explanation

The noun homicide means a murder. If you kill another person, you are committing a homicide. The level of the homicide is legally defined as murder if the act was intentional and as manslaughter if it was unintentional. Remember the meaning of homicide by remembering that cide, from the Latin cida, refers to killing, while the Latin homo means "man.” So homicide means “killing a man.” You can see another example in this quote from Oliver Wendell Holmes: “Life and language are alike sacred. Homicide and verbicide — that is, violent treatment of a word with fatal results to its legitimate meaning, which is its life — are alike forbidden.”

Example Sentences

See Examples For:

homicide homicides

Carrollton Ridge in southwest Baltimore, with historically some of the highest homicide rates in the city, still has about 750 vacant homes, 40 more than it had 10 years ago.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 17, 2026

The Seattle Police Department confirmed that it had responded to a call about her death on July 30 and said the case remained with its homicide unit, though it has been ruled accidental.

From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 6, 2026

In July, Nanos promoted Stivers, the lead homicide detective on the case, to lieutenant, which will take effect in September, according to people familiar with the matter.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 2, 2026

Still, the majority of the homicide spike took place before June 2020, when protests over Floyd’s death spread nationwide.

From Salon ● Jul. 20, 2026

In the federal system, for example, homicide convictions account for 0.4 percent of the past decade’s growth in the federal prison population, while drug convictions account for nearly 61 percent of that expansion.

From "The New Jim Crow" by Michelle Alexander

They shook up the format for the second, focusing on homicides, but have returned to a missing persons case.

From BBC ● Jul. 31, 2026

None of the agencies I contacted for this story replied to my inquiries about the status of the investigations—which, as with all unsolved homicides, officially remain open.

From Slate ● Jul. 7, 2026

Then-Mayor Rodrigo Guerrero, a Harvard-trained epidemiologist, began treating homicides as a public-health epidemic—mapping violence patterns to deploy police and social programs, a precursor to modern data-driven policing.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Jun. 18, 2026

She has also noted that data shows homicides in the city are at their lowest since 1966.

From Los Angeles Times ● Jun. 2, 2026

In 2008, there were 417 homicides in New York City.

From "The Other Wes Moore: One Name, Two Fates" by Wes Moore

Related Words

• assassination
• crime
• foul play
• manslaughter
• murder
• slaying