gallicide

See also: Gallicide

English

Etymology

Latin from gallus +‎ -cide.

Pronunciation

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Noun

gallicide (uncountable)

1. The killing of a chicken, especially the former sport of cock-throwing; or, humorously, the killing of a Frenchman.
   • 1737, “An Enquiry into the original Meaning of Cock-Throwing on Shrove-Tuesday”, in The Gentleman's Magazine, volume VII, pages 6–7:

     "A Cock has the Misfortune to be called in Latin by the same Word which signifies a Frenchman: So that nothing could so well represent, or be represented by the One as the Other.... Gallicide, or Cock-Throwing, was first introduced by way of contempt to the French, and to exasperate the Minds of the People against that Nation..."

   • 1855, Jacob Henry Burn, A Descriptive Catalogue of the London Traders, Tavern, and Coffee-house Tokens Current in the Seventeenth Century, London: Arthur Taylor, page 82:

     "Gallicide, or cock-throwing, the brutal custom of battering or pelting with sticks or stones a cock tied to a stake, is supposed to have originated in the time of King Edward the Third, when England and France appear to have indulged in provocations of more than ordinary resentment. The latin word gallus, by a vile pun, was equally expressive of a Frenchman and a cock; and poor chanticleer was doomed, as in effigy, to suffer the barbarities metaphorically intended for our continental neighbors."

   • 1986, Carl Djerassi, “Abortion in the United States: politics or policy?”, in Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, volume 42, number 4, page 41:

     "To paraphrase the ecologist Garett Hardin: If an embryo or fetus is a human being, then an acorn is an oak tree, and an egg a chicken. Scrambling an egg is then gallicide, and crushing acorns, deforestation."

   • 2002, Chris Aldrich, The Aldrich Dictionary of Phobias and Other Word Families, Trafford Publishing, page 13:

     "-cide: the killing or destruction of; or a killer of; or related to the killing of... [gallicide] fowl, especially chicken or turkeys; also gallinicide"

   • 2007, Andrew Nikiforuk, Pandemonium: How Globalization and Trade are Putting the World at Risk, page 9:

     "Smith had no idea that gallicide would soon become a regular staple of the global poultry trade."

Related terms

English terms suffixed with -cide