genocide
/ˈdʒɛnəsaɪd/noun
Intentional destruction of a human group
From Greek geno- (race).
Lineage
geno-
-cide
The story
A word for one of humanity’s darkest crimes was assembled in the middle of the Second World War. Raphael Lemkin, a Polish-born Jewish lawyer, coined genocide in 1943 or 1944—sources differ slightly—while describing the Nazi destruction of Jews and thinking also about earlier massacres, including the Armenian genocide. The first half comes from Greek génos, “race” or “kind,” the same ancient family that eventually gave English genus and genealogy. The ending, -cide, is the blunt little engine also found in homicide and regicide: killing. Lemkin’s innovation was not merely a new label for mass murder; it identified an attack on a group as a group, including acts such as preventing reproduction or forcibly taking children. Remember the word as a grammatical warning: genocide does not just count bodies—it names the attempt to erase a people.
Modern usage
In gaming, the Undertale “Genocide” route, in which the player deliberately kills every monster encountered
- Popularized by
- Undertale
- Heard in
- gaming
- See
- Undertale Genocide Route