genocide

/ˌdʒɛnəˈsaɪd/

/ˈdʒɛnəsaɪd/

Other forms: genocides

Genocide refers to the systematic destruction of a race or cultural group. In the Rwandan genocide of 1994, members of one ethnic group, the Hutus, killed some 850,000 Tutsis in an attempt to wipe them out completely.

Genocide was coined in 1944 by a Polish-Jewish scholar named Raphael Lemkin in response to the Holocaust. In 1948, the United Nations defined genocide as any of several acts (including murder) "committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group..."

Definitions of genocide

1. noun

   systematic killing of a racial or cultural group
   synonyms: race murder, racial extermination

   examples:

   final solution

   the mass murder of Jews under the German Nazi regime from 1941 until 1945

   type of:

   kill, killing, putting to death

   the act of terminating a life