Clinicide
noun ·Rare ·Advanced level
Definitions
- 1 The deliberate killing of a patient in the course of medical treatment. countable, uncountable
"[page 90, column 1] [Harold] Shipman killed himself in Wakefield prison on 13 January 2004. The Coronial hearing brought to an end a series of inquiries that found he had committed at least 250 murders in a killing career – a clinicide – that went back to internship at Pontefract General Infirmary. [...] [page 92, column 1] The frenetic consulting was a process of constant preparation for the clinicides, familiarizing himself with the killing ground and meticulously preparing for the moment when he could catch the patient alone, swiftly kill them and loot the place for their stock of narcotics, either for his own use or to use on the next victim."
Example
More examples"[page 90, column 1] [Harold] Shipman killed himself in Wakefield prison on 13 January 2004. The Coronial hearing brought to an end a series of inquiries that found he had committed at least 250 murders in a killing career – a clinicide – that went back to internship at Pontefract General Infirmary. [...] [page 92, column 1] The frenetic consulting was a process of constant preparation for the clinicides, familiarizing himself with the killing ground and meticulously preparing for the moment when he could catch the patient alone, swiftly kill them and loot the place for their stock of narcotics, either for his own use or to use on the next victim."
Etymology
From clini(cal) (“dealing with the practical management of patients”) + -cide (suffix meaning ‘killing’).
More for "clinicide"
Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.