One single word for honour killing [closed]
honour killing is a word that carries sentiments. But its Google synonym don't. Like assassination - is a more of a war machine word. butchery - is not right either.
Do we have a single word for honour killing?
There is a neologism mentioned in the media: honoricide.
Maclean's outdid the rest of the media when it called the four murders “honoricide.” While the word “honoricide” literally means “killing of honour” but were getting at the idea of “killing for honour.” Writer Michael Friscolanti sat throughout the three-month trial and wrote a 22-page comprehensive article detailing the girls’ lives and even wrote about how one of the girls’ tombstones has the incorrect birthdate.
Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Arianawardak/sandbox
As the flood of comments has probably made clear, this is a controversial subject. Wikipedia has a list of types of killing that is ... extensive. It includes Honor-Killing under the heading of Killing of family. This came as a surprise to me, as I would have classified Honor-Killing as killing of others due to reasons of personal honor having been offended, as in the history of duels. This is supported by the meanings of the phrases honorable combat, trial by combat and field of honor.
I was incorrect.
Honor-killing instead has a historical meaning of a killing of a family member who has brought shame to their family.
You might note that most of the types of killing are characterized by who or what is being killed and the specific relationship between the perpetrator and victim. Some examples:
- Homicide: from Latin homo for human being and caedere. Killing of one human by another.
- Regicide: Latin rex for king. The assassination of a Monarch by their subjects.
- Fratricide: killing of a brother.
In fact, there are only seven terms from among 60+ that don't use the suffix -cide. Not counting the two subtypes of suicide, these terms are:
- Honor-killing
- Murder
- Manslaughter
- Capital Punishment (a.k.a. execution)
- Euthanasia
Disclaimer: I know this is not a complete nor definitive list of words relating to killing. I am only building an argument on the ratio of terms presented, which I believe this list is large enough to indicate a definitive trend in the English language.
There are 58 well-documented terms (and several more less-than-documented terms) in this list with the -cide suffix which describe the victim of the killing. In this framework, honor-killing as a term meaning "killing for honor" is an oxymoron. A definition that would match the parts of the phrase at hand would be "the killing of honor." Ermanem points out the neologism of honoricide, which even more strongly opposes the pattern. I would like to counter this with a neologism of my own.
What an honor-kiling attempts to accomplish is the abatement of shame the perpetrator is feeling over the actions of a family member. I propose a better term for this is Shame-Killing or for a Latin fetishist phrase pudicide.
As John Lawler points out, Honor-killing often takes the form of a parent killing a child for disobeying them, and not even in a life threatening or even dangerous way. If the child is underage (as is frequently the case when judged by modern, western standards), then this is a failing of the parent to protect and care for their child. If the child is of age and expected to act as an individual and an adult, then there can be no dispute that this is a murder. There cannot exist such a high-stakes state where an individual is responsible for their own actions and answerable to a legal guardian, especially not with their life. Most democratic forms of governance hold that citizens are answerable only to the state. Even state-sponsored killing do not attempt to trivialize the death with a sugar-coated term – as already mentioned, this is called an execution, capital punishment or death penalty. The stated goal of such killings is not to restore the honor of the society, but to remove an ongoing danger to society.
Also note that sometimes Honor-killings are undertaken when the victim has no responsibility for the perceived offense, having already been victimized by another perpetrator. In this case, the victim who is killed is innocent of all wrong doing – one could even call them a martyr.
In either case, I view these types of killings as an ultimate admission of failure by the perpetrator, who views their own situation as so bleak and unrecoverable that they must attempt to erase the source of their shame, as though ending a life could change the past. Even the phrasing "honor-killing" is an attempt to put a positive light on a violent act. This fits the definition of propaganda, as evidenced by how contrary it is to other phrases regarding killings.