I believe I am guilty of verbicide! Any other sinners out there?
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From: word@M-W.COM [mailto:word@M-W.COM]
Sent: Friday, February 15, 2002 5:00 AM
To: MW-WOD@LISTSERV.WEBSTER.M-W.COM
Subject: verbicide: M-W's Word of the Day
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The Word of the Day for February 16 is:
verbicide \VER-buh-syde\ (noun)
*1 : deliberate distortion of the sense of a word (as in
punning)
2 : one who distorts the sense of a word
Example sentence:
"Homicide and verbicide -- that is, violent treatment of a
word with fatal results to its legitimate meaning, which is its
life -- are alike forbidden." (Oliver Wendell Holmes, _The
Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table_, 1858)
Did you know?
If you think "verbicide" sounds like a silly way of saying
"the killing of a verb," you're not entirely wrong. "Verbicide"
was formed by combining the Latin word for "word" itself, which
is "verbum," with the English suffix "-cide," meaning "killer"
or "killing." "Verbicide" describes the metaphorical "killing"
of a word by the distortion or destruction of its meaning (and
these murderous tendencies are not limited to verbs -- one can
commit verbicide upon any part of speech). It can be applied to
wordplay or punning, or to language distortions that are
intentionally deceptive or euphemistic. It has also developed a
second sense referring to the person who creates such
distortions.
*Indicates the sense illustrated in the example sentence.
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