Cygnicide
noun ·Rare ·Advanced level
Definitions
- 1 The killing of a swan. rare, uncountable
"[A]s my eye wandered carelessly across the face of the water, it was electrified by the sight of a splendid black swan, (the only one I had ever seen wild,) sailing out of the rushes on the margin of the lagoon, about fifty yards from my station. […] Perhaps I might as well have galloped at once for my gun, for it is vain to deny that I had already committed cycnicide in my heart."
Example
More examples"[A]s my eye wandered carelessly across the face of the water, it was electrified by the sight of a splendid black swan, (the only one I had ever seen wild,) sailing out of the rushes on the margin of the lagoon, about fifty yards from my station. […] Perhaps I might as well have galloped at once for my gun, for it is vain to deny that I had already committed cycnicide in my heart."
Etymology
From Latin cygnus + -icide.
More for "cygnicide"
Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.