Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • noun The killing of one's brother or sister.
  • noun One who has killed one's brother or sister.
  • noun The accidental killing of an ally caused by a discharge of a military weapon.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun One who murders or kills a brother.
  • noun The act of murdering or killing a brother.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • noun The act of one who murders or kills his own brother.
  • noun One who murders or kills his own brother.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun The killing of one's brother (or sister).
  • noun A person who commits this crime.
  • noun military, by extension The intentional or unintentional killing of a comrade in arms.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • noun a person who murders their brother or sister
  • noun fire that injures or kills an ally
  • noun the murder of your sibling

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[Middle English, from Old French, from Latin frātricīdium and frātricīda : frāter, frātr-, brother; see bhrāter- in Indo-European roots + -cīdium and -cīda, -cide.]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From Latin frater ("brother") + caedere ("to kill").

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Examples

  • An investigation was immediately launched, and several documents show that the local chain of command was largely convinced it was fratricide from the beginning.

    May 2005 2005

  • This caused the Venetian government to seize their treasure and to commission the statues as a cautionary, perpetual reminder that fratricide is considered very, very rude in that part of the world.

    The Shoe That Went Missing for 761 Years 2004

  • This caused the Venetian government to seize their treasure and to commission the statues as a cautionary, perpetual reminder that fratricide is considered very, very rude in that part of the world.

    Veniceblog: 2004

  • Frank J. Sulloway in his Born to Rebel: Birth Order, Family Dynamics and Creative Lives (New York: Random House, 1996) gives a paragraph to the Díaz brothers (273) and throughout his book refers to fratricide and sibling rivalry.

    Bloodlust Russell Jacoby 2011

  • Frank J. Sulloway in his Born to Rebel: Birth Order, Family Dynamics and Creative Lives (New York: Random House, 1996) gives a paragraph to the Díaz brothers (273) and throughout his book refers to fratricide and sibling rivalry.

    Bloodlust Russell Jacoby 2011

  • The U.S. military refers to it as fratricide, which is the killing of a brother.

    CNN Transcript Mar 23, 2003 2003

  • The poem proceeds to move fear away from political theology and ultimately toward a secular account of legitimate retributive justice — in which fear is invoked as a highly specific accompaniment to the notion of deserved punishment for the "fratricide" that

    Romantic Fear 2008

  • In service as an Army Ranger, Tillman was shot by another American in what the military calls "fratricide," but what the rest of the nation knows as "friendly fire."

    Pat Tillman’s Unfinished Legacy - Swampland - TIME.com 2008

  • Tillman was on his second tour of duty when he was killed in Afghanistan -- a victim of "fratricide," inadvertently killed by his own troops during an ill-fated expedition.

    Rory O'Connor: The Tillman Story -- Just Give Us Some Truth 2010

  • He also thought that the problem posed by "fratricide" would preclude a successful first strike.

    Things Found In The Wreckage Of Angel 1508 2009

Comments

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  • Fater or Fatris refers to Brother in Latin and ' Cide' refers to killing.

    Fater+Cide = Fratricide = Killing one's own brother.

    October 22, 2013