noun · 1 senses · updated from the 2026-07-25 local source snapshot
Definitions and examples are grouped by meaning. Pronunciation, history, word forms, translations, descendants, synonyms, antonyms, derived terms, and related words appear whenever the source provides them.
Sound
Pronunciation
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Received-Pronunciation:/ˈpɒpjʊlɪsaɪd/
Southern-England:Recorded audio is listed in the source snapshot.
General-American:/ˈpɑpjələˌsaɪd/
1
noun
Meaning 1
The deliberate slaughter of a people or a nation.
Definition source: English Wiktionary via Wiktextract
Usage: archaic, countable, uncountable
No example sentence was provided for this meaning.
Meaning relationships
Synonyms: none provided
Antonyms: none provided
History
Etymology
Probably an unadapted borrowing from French populicide (“(noun) slaughter of a people; (adjective) harmful to the people”) (obsolete, rare), from Latin populus (“community; people; nation”) + French -cide (suffix meaning ‘killing’). The French word populicides was coined by the French journalist and revolutionary François-Noël Babeuf (1760–1797) in 1795 to describe the massacre of 117,000 farmers in the Vendée region during the French Revolution. Equivalent to populace + -icide.
Across languages
Translations
6 source translations are retained for this English entry.
Dutch:
volksmoord
— deliberate slaughter of a people or a nation
Finnish:
kansanmurha
— deliberate slaughter of a people or a nation
French:
populicide
— deliberate slaughter of a people or a nation
German:
Völkermord
— deliberate slaughter of a people or a nation
Portuguese:
populicídio
— deliberate slaughter of a people or a nation
Spanish:
populicidio
— deliberate slaughter of a people or a nation