femicide
Femicide (noun) means the act of killing a woman or girl on account of her gender, typically carried out by a man out of misogyny. Example: “The report tracked cases of femicide across the region over the past decade.”
How to use femicide
Learner’s notesIn plain EnglishFemicide is the killing of a woman or girl because she is female.
The word is formal and mainly appears in legal, academic and news contexts rather than everyday speech.
Femicide names a killing motivated by the victim's gender, so it is more specific than the general word homicide.
Trace the full origin ↓Fill the gap
Can you complete this real example?
The report tracked cases of _____ across the region over the past decade.
Etymology
The word combines fem-, taken from the Latin fēmina meaning woman, with the suffix -icide, which denotes killing. It follows the same pattern as homicide and genocide.
