Omnicide
noun ·Rare ·Advanced level
Definitions
- 1 The total extinction of the human species as a result of human action. Most commonly it refers to human extinction through nuclear warfare, but it can also refer to such extinction through other means such as global anthropogenic ecological catastrophe. countable, uncountable
"How extraordinary that Curtis LeMay believed for the rest of his life that the United States “lost” the Cuban missile crisis and the Cold War. If John Kennedy had followed LeMay's advice [to bomb Cuba and take out the missile sites], history would have forgotten the Nazis and their terrible Holocaust. Ours would have been the historic omnicide."
- 2 Someone or something that causes total destruction. countable, rare
"Our soils have been made sterile over many areas from pesticides, which have been really omnicides. Today, DDT as the greatest culprit, and one which has brought immense profit to the pesticide producing industry, has been spread worldwide."
Example
More examples"How extraordinary that Curtis LeMay believed for the rest of his life that the United States “lost” the Cuban missile crisis and the Cold War. If John Kennedy had followed LeMay's advice [to bomb Cuba and take out the missile sites], history would have forgotten the Nazis and their terrible Holocaust. Ours would have been the historic omnicide."
Etymology
From omni- (“all”) + -cide (“killing; killer”).
More for "omnicide"
Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.