Autogenocide

noun

noun ·Rare ·Advanced level

Definitions

Noun
  1. 1
    The extermination of a country's citizens by its own people or government. uncountable
  2. 2
    Genocide of a particular group by members of that group. uncountable

    "If Anita Bryantt really wants to devastate gay liberation, she should pry her fingers from her Bible long enough to thumb through the printed gay media. Scathing onslaughts may be fun, but they aren't very productive. Will we never cease practicing intellectual autogenocide?"

Example

More examples

"If Anita Bryantt really wants to devastate gay liberation, she should pry her fingers from her Bible long enough to thumb through the printed gay media. Scathing onslaughts may be fun, but they aren't very productive. Will we never cease practicing intellectual autogenocide?"

Etymology

From auto- + genocide, coined in the late 1970s.

Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.