Neonaticide

noun

noun ·Rare ·Advanced level

Definitions

Noun
  1. 1
    The murder of a newborn within 24 hours of birth. countable, uncountable

    "But critics of the law said mothers who immediately kill their babies after giving birth, a practice known as neonaticide, are usually in deep denial about their pregnancies."

  2. 2
    The murderer of a newborn (anyone who practices or who has practiced this kind of murder). countable, uncountable

Example

More examples

"But critics of the law said mothers who immediately kill their babies after giving birth, a practice known as neonaticide, are usually in deep denial about their pregnancies."

Etymology

From neonate + -cide.

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