The nouns parricide and patricide share the definitions (1) the murder of one’s father, and (2) a person who murders his or her father. But parricide is sometimes used more generally, referring to the murder of one’s mother, grandparent, or other close relative.
Patricide‘s roots are easy to trace. Pater is the Latin word for father, and -cide is a Latin suffix meaning slayer or murderer. Parricide obviously shares the -cide part, but the origins of parri are mysterious. There’s a good chance it relates to a Greek word for kinsman, however.
Mostly, though, the words are variants of each other. Most dictionaries list parricide as the primary form, and the word appears about twice as often as patricide. And though patricide is the more etymologically sound term for the murder of one’s father, parricide is often used as the legal term for that crime.
Examples
Parricide, or the killing of one’s parent, is extremely rare … [89.3 KPCC]
In this issue, Diedrich Diederichsen considers the resulting fetish for radicalism in the form of Oedipal patricide … [E-Flux]
Reports disclosed that the complainant … filed an attempted parricide case against his son … [Zambonaga Today Online]
He … provides a truly horrifying account of their political machinations, including murder, brutality, betrayal, patricide and even genocide. [The Nation]
