filicide

American  

[fil-uh-sahyd] / ˈfɪl əˌsaɪd /

noun

1. a person who kills their own child.

2. the act of killing one's child.

   Ancient myth contains numerous examples of filicide.

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filicide British  

/ ˈfɪlɪˌsaɪd /

noun

1. the act of killing one's own son or daughter

2. a person who does this

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Other Word Forms

• filicidal adjective

Etymology

Origin of filicide

First recorded in 1655–65; from Latin fīli(us) “son” ( fīli(a) “daughter”) + -cide

Example Sentences

Podcasters, reporters and TV producers rushed to South Carolina to tell a Shakespearean story of filicide, anchored by a main character whose button-down shirts seem to cover a terrifying moral void.

From New York Times • Mar. 8, 2023

He warns that an un-nuanced focus by the media on autism-related filicide harks back to the 1950s, when the “refrigerator mother” theory of autism erroneously suggested that a lack of maternal affection caused autism.

From Newsweek