murder
/ˈmɝːdɚ/noun, verb
Unlawful killing committed with legally defined intent
From Proto-Indo-European *mer- (to die).
Lineage
The story
Long before courtroom statutes, Germanic speakers used a word like *murþr for a killing, especially one done secretly—the sort of act committed at night or while someone slept. Old Norse law drew a sharp social line between morð, concealed slaughter, and vig, an acknowledged killing that could at least be answered with vengeance or compensation. Around 1300, English had morþor, but its spelling began to drift toward murder under the influence of Anglo-French mordre and Medieval Latin murdrum. Chaucer captured the old atmosphere in the late fourteenth century with the proverb “Mordre wol out”: murder will out. The same grim word later loosened its grip, first meaning a very unpleasant situation by 1878 and then, by about 1940, something excellent or terrific in inverted slang. Remember the hidden contrast inside its ancestry: murder was not merely killing, but killing concealed—an offense whose darkness mattered as much as its violence.
Modern usage
A humorous or figurative act of decisively defeating someone or winning at life.
- Heard in
- slang