regicide

UK/ˈɹɛ.d͡ʒə.saɪd/US/ˈɹɛ.d͡ʒə.saɪd/

nounC2Very rare — outside the 30,000 commonest English words, so you will meet it in writing rather than in speechleans written

Other forms: regicides

Regicide is the killing of a king. Guilty of regicide, an act of regicide, charged with regicide.

It also names the person who does it, as when the men who tried Charles I were called regicides. Regicide was treated as a crime against God as well as the state.

Definitions of regicide

1nounregicideThe killing of a king.C2
“Regicide was a charge nobody expected to survive.”

regicide is a killing.

Where it comes from

Latin rex, a king, plus caedere, to kill; the English word spread after the trial of Charles I in 1649.

Medieval Latin
rēgicidium — king-killing
English, today
regicide

Medieval Latin rēgicidium (“king-killing”)

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA

Practised in A Song of Ice and Fire

Practise this word

regicide in the wild

A regicide can also be the person responsible for the killing.
Regicide
The concept of regicide has also been explored in media and the arts through pieces like Macbeth (Macbeth's killing of King Duncan).
Regicide
Despite being promised immunity after the Restoration in 1660, he was condemned as a regicide and executed in October.
Adrian Scrope
Although aware that as a regicide of Charles I he was likely to be arrested after the 1660 Stuart Restoration, Carew made no attempt to escape.
John Carew (regicide)
A regicide who voted for the Execution of Charles I in January 1649, he died in August 1660 awaiting trial following the Stuart Restoration.
John Bourchier (regicide)

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From Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0. These sentences were written by other people about their own subjects; they are here to show the word at work, not as anybody’s opinion.

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