Mord

See also: mord and morð

German[edit]

Mord m (strong, genitive Mordes or Mords, plural Morde)

murder
- 1929, Kurt Tucholsky, Das Lächeln der Mona Lisa (Sammelband), Ernst Rowohlt Verlag, page 40:
  Der Mord ist, wie jedem gebildeten Staatsanwalt bekannt, eine Tat, die in der äußersten Ekstase und mit der kältesten Roheit begangen wird.
  Murder is, as known to every educated prosecutor, an act that is committed in utmost ecstasy and with the coldest brutality.

Certain milder cases of murder, such as the American second-degree murder, are often covered by Totschlag in German legal terminology and do not then qualify as Mord.
An English phrase like “Peter's murder” is ambiguous as it can mean either “the murder that Peter committed” or “the murder by which Peter was killed”. In German, „Peters Mord” can only mean the former. The latter is expressed as „der Mord an Peter“ or by using the word Ermordung („Peters Ermordung”).

Declension of Mord [masculine, strong]

¹Now rare, see notes.