Definitions

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

  • noun The act of killing one's mother.
  • noun One who kills one's mother.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun The killing or murder of one's mother.
  • noun One who kills his or her mother.

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

  • noun The murder of a mother by her son or daughter.
  • noun One who murders one's own mother.

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

  • noun The killing of one's mother.
  • noun A person who kills his or her mother.

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

  • noun a person who murders their mother
  • noun the murder of your mother

Etymologies

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

[Latin mātricīdium and mātricīda : mātri-, matri- + -cīdium and -cīda, -cide.]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

matri- + -cide.

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Examples

  • But thou shalt not be called the matricide, when thou hast slain her, but dropping this name thou shalt arrive at better things, being styled the slayer of the havoc-dealing

    The Tragedies of Euripides, Volume I. 480? BC-406 BC Euripides

  • While we have endured patri/matricide, systematic rape and other atrocities for years.

    Bishops slam 'unacceptable' health care bill 2009

  • He must not bring about the monstrum of matricide.

    Modality and Hamlet Hal Duncan 2010

  • From matricide to patricide, as boring turncoat alien Ryan sneaks back on the ship to fetch his rapidly maturing hybrid daughter Amy, but is instead killed presumably when Amy wraps her own tail around dad's neck, revealing her allegiance to surrogate mommy Anna.

    Matt's TV Week in Review 2011

  • It is a key significance of the play, I think, that we have this prefigura of a monstrum that does not come to pass -- or not quite the way we expect it to -- in so far as the text is wrought with the undercurrents of Hamlet's potential matricide of Gertrude.

    Archive 2010-01-01 Hal Duncan 2010

  • Strauss leapt into an acid vat of bad taste in his earlier works, embracing necrophilia and incest in Salome, matricide in Elektra.

    Die Frau ohne Schatten; BBC Proms 61 & 62 – review 2011

  • It is a key significance of the play, I think, that we have this prefigura of a monstrum that does not come to pass -- or not quite the way we expect it to -- in so far as the text is wrought with the undercurrents of Hamlet's potential matricide of Gertrude.

    Modality and Hamlet Hal Duncan 2010

  • He must not bring about the monstrum of matricide.

    Archive 2010-01-01 Hal Duncan 2010

  • So she got elected (with economic threats and promises of free Jonas Brothers tickets to the entire United States) and passed a matricide law to kill her mother.

    Tiffany's Economy sam cicero 2010

  • Halloween brought pure evil into our safe, suburban homes and Night put tons of taboos on the screen (necrophilia, patricide, matricide, racism, heresy, government corruption, etc) in a way that made the film haunting in a subconscious way.

    Sunday Discussion: The Decline of the Horror Genre? « FirstShowing.net 2008

Comments

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  • Mater or Matri refers to Mother in Latin and ' Cide' refers to killing.

    Mater+Cide = Matricide = Killing one's own mother.

    October 22, 2013