Talk:-cide

Usage notes
Regarding -CIDE, Garner says,

It denotes either the act of slaying [fr. L. -cīdium “cutting, killing”] or someone who slays [fr. L. -cīda “cutter, killer”]. Hence fratricide is either the killing of one’s brother or someone who kills his or her brother.

Famicide (= the destroyer of someone’s reputation) was once used as a synonym for slanderer. Prolicide (= the act of killing offspring either before or soon after birth) is broad enough to subsume both feticide and infanticide.

The OED records uxoricide (= the slayer of one’s wife) but not mariticide (= the slayer of one’s husband), which can be deduced only from the adjective mariticidal. Scientists have developed algicides, fungicides, germicides, and insecticides (known also as pesticides). --Backinstadiums (talk) 22:47, 11 August 2021 (UTC)