homicide
Americannoun
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homicides
plural
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the killing of one human being by another.
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a person who kills another; murderer.
noun
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the killing of a human being by another person
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a person who kills another
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Nouns
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.”
Vocabulary lists containing homicide
Tears of a Tiger
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Latin Love, Vol II: cadere
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And Then There Were None
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Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
See Examples For:
The officers failed to class Carmenza's death as a murder and did not pass it to a homicide team for a fuller investigation, as happens with suspected homicides.
From BBC ● Aug. 7, 2026
Stivers had been reprimanded two months before Nancy’s kidnapping for delays securing crime-scene evidence in a homicide case, according to his personnel records.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 2, 2026
Madison Mayor Satya Rhodes-Conway said, “Our community deserves full transparency and accountability,” and the killing is being investigated as a homicide.
From Salon ● Jul. 30, 2026
By the time Blake went on trial, nearly a decade had passed since Simpson’s acquittal for double homicide, but for prosecutors and detectives, the humiliation was fresh.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jul. 30, 2026
And because the death penalty is rarely given for crimes other than homicide, its deterrent effect cannot account for a speck of decline in other violent crimes.
From "Freakonomics: A Rogue Economist Explores the Hidden Side of Everything" by Steven D. Levitt
The data, per the department, helped officers recover 259 stolen vehicles, locate four missing persons, and aided the investigations of around nine of the city’s 28 homicides in 2025.
From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 21, 2026
The officers failed to class Carmenza's death as a murder and did not pass it to a homicide team for a fuller investigation, as happens with suspected homicides.
From BBC ● Aug. 7, 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
By last year, Cali’s homicides were down to 1,107, according to Colombia’s medical examiner.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jun. 18, 2026
“The medical examiner will determine if these were homicides, accidents, natural deaths—” “Natural?”
From "Confessions of a Murder Suspect" by James Patterson
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
