genocide

noun geno·cide \ ˈje-nə-ˌsīd \

|Updated on: 16 Aug 2018

Definition of genocide

: the deliberate and systematic destruction of a racial, political, or cultural group

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genocidal

play \ˌje-nə-ˈsī-dᵊl\ adjective

See genocide defined for English-language learners

See genocide defined for kids

Recent Examples of genocide from the Web

The Rome Statute was adopted on July 17, 1998, but the ICC wasn't officially established until July 1, 2002, with a mandate to prosecute war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide.

— Fox News, "US boycotts informal UN meeting on ICC's 20th anniversary," 6 July 2018
More hauntingly, dogs are linked to the country’s 1994 genocide.

— yana paskova, National Geographic, "Learning to Love Dogs in Kigali," 29 June 2018
But there are still a lot of unsettling, unanswered questions about how, for example, Facebook was weaponized in Myanmar to fuel genocide.

— eric johnson, Recode, "How can we make tech more accountable?," 22 June 2018
While Adolf Hitler alluded to mass genocide as far back as 1922, the Nazis initially looked into expelling all the Jews from Europe.

— margaret hartmann, Daily Intelligencer, "Jeff Sessions Defends Family Separation With False Claim About Nazis’ Treatment of Jews," 19 June 2018
Especially for people whose families have been severed by things like slavery and genocide.

— megan molteni, WIRED, "Maybe DNA Can’t Answer All Our Questions About Heredity," 28 May 2018
The United Nations has ruled that ISIS’s tactics amount to genocide.

— sara miller llana, The Christian Science Monitor, "He’s building a record about those persecuted because of their religion," 5 May 2018
Sixties-era civil rights activists like Fannie Lou Hamer and Whitney Young had denounced the procedure as a form of genocide.

— jason l. riley, WSJ, "Let’s Talk About the Black Abortion Rate," 10 July 2018
The next step is to give Trump credit for not invading Poland or trying to commit full-scale genocide against Jews and Roma in Eastern Europe.

— jeet heer, The New Republic, "How much credit should we give Trump for not annexing Austria?," 20 June 2018

These example sentences are selected automatically from various online news sources to reflect current usage of the word 'genocide.' Views expressed in the examples do not represent the opinion of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback.

Origin and Etymology of genocide

geno- + -cide

NEW! Time Traveler

First Known Use: 1944

in the meaning defined above

See Words from the same year

Other Government and Politics Terms

agent provocateur, agitprop, autarky, cabal, egalitarianism, federalism, hegemony, plenipotentiary, popular sovereignty, socialism

GENOCIDE Defined for English Language Learners

genocide

noun

Definition of genocide for English Language Learners

: the deliberate killing of people who belong to a particular racial, political, or cultural group

Medical Dictionary

genocide

noun geno·cide \ ˈjen-ə-ˌsīd \

medical Definition of genocide

: the deliberate and systematic destruction of a racial, political, or cultural group — compare homicide

—

genocidal

play \ˌjen-ə-ˈsīd-ᵊl\ adjective

Law Dictionary

genocide

noun geno·cide \ ˈje-nə-ˌsīd \

legal Definition of genocide

: acts committed with intent to partially or wholly destroy a national, ethnic, racial, or religious group; also : the crime of committing such an act