genocide

[jen-uh-sahyd]

noun

1. the deliberate and systematic extermination of a national, racial, political, or cultural group.

genocide

/ ˈdʒɛnəʊˌsaɪd /

noun

1. the policy of deliberately killing a nationality or ethnic group

genocide

1. The deliberate destruction of an entire race or nation. The Holocaust conducted by the Nazis in Germany and the Rwandan genocide are examples of attempts at genocide.

Other Word Forms

• genocidal adjective

Word History and Origins

Origin of genocide¹

First recorded in 1940–45; from Greek géno(s) “race” + -cide

Word History and Origins

Origin of genocide¹

C20: from geno-, from Greek genos race + _-cide

Example Sentences

For two years, controversies have engulfed film festivals, popular TV shows produced in Israel have gone dark on American streaming platforms and escalating accusations of antisemitism and complicity in genocide have pitted artist against artist.

Read more on Wall Street Journal

Rwandan President Paul Kagame is trying to turn his small East African country—remembered worldwide as the site of the 1994 genocide—into a hub for major international sporting events.

Read more on Wall Street Journal

NAIROBI, Kenya—A giant hydrogen-generation project in Africa is pitting German clean-energy executives against descendants of victims of Germany’s forgotten colonial genocide.

Read more on Wall Street Journal

In a statement, the group noted that while Paramount+ was distributing “Red Alert,” the company had not offered “equivalent programming about Palestinian experiences of the genocide in Gaza.”

Read more on Los Angeles Times

A UN commission of inquiry said last month that Israel had committed genocide against Palestinians in Gaza, in a report Israel's foreign ministry categorically rejected as "distorted and false".

Read more on BBC

Related Words

• carnage 
• mass murder 
• massacre 
• slaughter