Definitions

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

  • adjective Of or relating to struggle within a nation, organization, or group.
  • adjective Mutually destructive; ruinous or fatal to both sides.
  • adjective Characterized by bloodshed or carnage.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • Destructive; deadly; accompanied with much slaughter.

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

  • adjective Involving, or accompanied by, mutual slaughter; mutually destructive.
  • adjective Of or pertaining to internal conflicts within a group.

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

  • adjective Mutually destructive; most often applied to warfare.
  • adjective Characterized by struggle within a group, usually applied to an ethnic or familial relationship.

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

  • adjective characterized by bloodshed and carnage for both sides
  • adjective (of conflict) within a group or organization

Etymologies

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

[Latin internecīnus, destructive, variant of internecīvus, from internecāre, to slaughter : inter-, intensive pref.; see inter– + nex, nec-, death; see nek- in Indo-European roots.]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From Latin internecīvus, deadly, alternatively, Latin inter (between) and necare (to slay).

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Examples

  • Therefore, it seems reasonable to propose that for male hippies as well as male residents of the Iowa frontier, tensions expressed through the manhood act — counterbalanced, at times, by the restraining hands of men like Murcott — dissipated some of the emotional energy that might otherwise have found expression in internecine violence. 48

    Manhood in the Age of Aquarius: Masculinity in Two Countercultural Communities, 1965–83 2007

  • British subjectivity posed by the American crisis is that the people most like them not only take up arms in internecine strife but form an alliance with the

    Projection, Patriotism, Surrogation: Handel in Calcutta 2006

  • When I saw you use the word internecine in reference to possible infighting at the Whitehouse, it reminded me of this Word History article.

    Firedoglake » Somebody Had Their Wheaties… 2006

  • The proper meaning of internecine is murderous, destructive.

    On Dictionaries 1969

  • The proper meaning of internecine is murderous, destructive.

    On Dictionaries 1924

  • Investors lost about $200 billion as the Internet bubble collapsed, executives at AOL Time Warner engaged in internecine warfare, and the Justice Department and Securities and Exchange Commission challenged the company’s accounting practices.

    AOL and Time Warner to officially split 2009

  • I'm familiar with feminist politics here at home over the past several decades, and they can get pretty wrangy at times (indeed the word "internecine" has come to mind on occasion), so I'm not surprised that there are widely divergent, even antagonistic, factions within the Afghan women's movement.

    Trash talk 2009

  • I'm familiar with feminist politics here at home over the past several decades, and they can get pretty wrangy at times (indeed the word "internecine" has come to mind on occasion), so I'm not surprised that there are widely divergent, even antagonistic, factions within the Afghan women's movement.

    Archive 2009-11-01 2009

  • Such hopelessness focuses a movement inward, leading to the kind of internecine fights around identity politics and issue positions that frequently divide the left.

    Sally Kohn: Force or Fringe: United States Social Forum Vs. Tea Party 2010

  • Such hopelessness focuses a movement inward, leading to the kind of internecine fights around identity politics and issue positions that frequently divide the left.

    Sally Kohn: Force or Fringe: United States Social Forum Vs. Tea Party 2010

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