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Terminate with extreme prejudice

verb

Definitions

Verb
  1. 1
    To murder; to assassinate. US, euphemistic

    "The government ordered the spies to be terminated with extreme prejudice: they did not want them to expose what they knew in a public trial."

Etymology

First appears c. 1969. Derives from US military intelligence and CIA documents, in news coverage of the Green Beret Case, and further popularized in the movie Apocalypse Now (1979). A play on the term terminate with prejudice when an employee’s employment is terminated, meaning will not rehire employee to same position in future (i.e., prejudiced against rehiring), hence terminate definitively, i.e., kill.

See also for "terminate with extreme prejudice"

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