Etymologically
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homicida

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Pronunciation

  • Classical: [hɔ.mɪˈkiː.da][1]
  • Ecclesiastical: [o.miˈt͡ʃiː.da][1]

Forms

homicīda m or f (genitive homicīdae); first declension[1] It is masculine, and also feminine of a woman.[2][1]

Etymology

It is from Latin homō (“man”) + -cīda (“killer”), the second part from caedō (“to cut down, kill”), formed like parricīda.[3][4][5] De Vaan traces caedō to Proto-Italic *kaid-e/o- and Proto-Indo-European *keh₂id- (“to cut, hew”).[6]

Earliest recorded meaning

De Vaan and Köbler date it from Cicero,[6][7] who asks whether certain men are murderers or liberators, homicidaene sint an vindices libertatis.[3][2]

Semantic evolution

It is a manslayer or murderer.[3][2] Döderlein notes that it denotes the killer in general, as far as killing is a crime, like Greek ἀνδροφόνος (androphónos), whereas interfector is the slayer of a particular person.[8] Horace uses it of an epic hero as a killer of men, homicīdam Hectorem.[3] It is common in the Germanic law codes of the early Middle Ages.[7] Church Latin has it as murderer.[9] English homicide in the sense “person who kills” (late 14th century) came from it through French.[5]

Timeline

  • 81–43 BC – Cicero, “murderers or liberators”.[3][7]
  • 65–8 BC – Horace, of Hector.[3][7]
  • late 14th century – English homicide, a killer.[5]

Meanings

Noun

  1. A murderer, manslayer, homicide; a murderess.[3][2][1]
  2. Of an epic hero, a killer of men.[3]

Word family

  • homicīdālis
  • homicīdium

References

  1. ^ a b c d e Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
  2. ^ a b c d Lewis, Charlton T.; Short, Charles (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
  3. ^ a b c d e f g h Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
  4. ^ Thesaurus linguae Latinae (1900–), Leipzig: Teubner; Berlin: De Gruyter; open-access ed., Munich: Bayerische Akademie der Wissenschaften
  5. ^ a b c Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
  6. ^ a b de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill
  7. ^ a b c d Köbler, Gerhard (2010), Lateinisches Abkunfts- und Wirkungswörterbuch für Altertum und Mittelalter, online ed., koeblergerhard.de
  8. ^ Döderlein, Ludwig (1874), Döderlein’s Hand-book of Latin Synonymes, tr. H. H. Arnold, Andover: W. F. Draper
  9. ^ Stelten, Leo F. (1995), Dictionary of Ecclesiastical Latin, Peabody, Mass.: Hendrickson