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The systematic and deliberate destruction of a group of people, typically by killing substantial numbers of them, on the basis of their ethnicity, religion, or nationality.
1944, November, Axis Rule in Occupied Europe: Laws of Occupation, "Analysis of Government - Proposals for Redress", chapter 9, page 79
For the German occupying authorities war thus appears to offer the most appropriate occasion for carrying out their policy of genocide.
Shaddam IV: I want fifty legion of Sardaukar on Arrakis at once! Subordinate: Fifty legions? That's our entire reserves as well. Shaddam IV: This is genocide: the deliberate and systematic destruction of all life on Arrakis!
2008 June 1, A. Dirk Moses, “Preface”, in Empire, Colony, Genocide: Conquest, Occupation, and Subaltern Resistance in World History, Berghahn Books, →ISBN, page x:
Though most of the cases here cover European encounters with non-Europeans, it is not the intention of the book to give the impression that genocide is a function of European colonialism and imperialism alone.
A genocide will always be followed by the denial that it ever happened.
(by extension) The systematic killing of substantial numbers of people on other grounds.
Native Americans in the twentieth century are no longer a "vanishing race" or a silent minority. They have survived centuries of cultural genocide inflicted on them by non-Native Americans— both the well-meaning and the self-seeking— […]
2000, Kimmo Kasila, “Arch lich at Minetown bones, Help!”, in rec.games.roguelike.nethack (Usenet):
I used genocide in my first ascension, but have been genocideless ever since. Makes the game much more interesting, but then again, if one hasn't ascended yet, it will be interesting anyway.
Genocide was coined to mean, and is generally used in law to mean, the destruction of an ethnic group as such (as a group). This is the case whether it is done by killing of all members of the group or other means, such as dispersing the group. In common usage, genocide is often used to mean “systematic mass killing”, whether or not the purpose is the destruction of a group or something else, such as terrorizing the group or killing a population without regard to group membership, more specifically known as democide.
Synonyms
(systematic killing of substantial numbers of people):genticide
The translations below need to be checked and inserted above into the appropriate translation tables. See instructions at Wiktionary:Entry layout § Translations.
Even though the Soviet constitution and that of the Ukrainian SSR contain provisions guaranteeing freedom of religion and other fundamental liberties, the Soviet government genocided the Ukrainian Autocephalous Orthodox Church in the 1930's
A clue appears in the Nazis finding the Gypsies dirty and disorderly (for not only Jews were genocided).
2007, War on Truth: Everything You Ever Wanted to Know About the Invasion of Iraq, page 66:
You just know it makes much more sense to encourage brutal governments to buy our WMD technology than to get them to put food in the empty bellies of their people or quit genociding the populace.
2016, Conflict in Ancient Greece and Rome: The Definitive Political, Social, and Military Encyclopedia, page 1193:
It is unlikely that Sulla succeeded in genociding the Samnites, since their mountains offered many refuges, but in subsequent centuries the Samnites disappeared, being absorbed into the general population of Italy.
^ “Q&A: Armenian genocide dispute”, in BBC News, 2016 June 2, archived from the original on 2016-06-06: “Raphael Lemkin, the Polish-Jewish lawyer who coined the term "genocide" in 1943, referred to the atrocities against Armenians as well as the Nazi massacres of Jews when describing his investigations.”
^ Daniel Levy, The Holocaust and Memory in the Global Age (2006, →ISBN, page 91: "In 1943, Raphael Lemkin, a Polish Jew, coined the term "genocide" for the deliberate extermination of a people. Without a doubt, the Holocaust provided the occasion for Lemkin's attempts to warn the world of the systematic annihilation of particular groups, "
^ Lemkin, Raphaël (1994) Axis Rule in Occupied Europe, Washington: Carnegie Endowment for International Peace: Division of International Law, →OCLC, page 79: “This new word, coined by the author to denote an old practice in its modern development, is made from the ancient Greek word genos (race, tribe) and the Latin cide (killing), thus corresponding in its formation to such words as tyrannicide, homocide, infanticide, etc.”