Domicide

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. The act of destroying or killing a dwelling or home, often deliberately
2. An event or action that results in the intentional destruction of a residence
3. The deliberate extermination or demolition of a house or living space

Etymology: "Domicide" was coined deliberately, not discovered in old texts. Geographers J. Douglas Porteous and Sandra E. Smith introduced it to name the destruction of a home by human action, a concept they developed to describe what happens when people are displaced from their homes by deliberate forces such as urban redevelopment, war, or government policy. The word is built from two parts. The first, "domus," is Latin for "house" or "home," and it is the same root behind words like "domestic" and "dome" in English. The second, "-cide," comes from Latin "-cida," meaning "killer" or "act of killing," as in "homicide" and "genocide." Joining them makes a term that treats the loss of a dwelling as something close to a killing of the home itself.