Tyrannicida

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. A person who puts a ruler to death for abusing power ; the act of murdering an oppressive tyrant in order to end despotic rule
2. Someone who assassinates a despot or oppressor ; the killing of a tyrant, often justified as a political act
3. A killer of a tyrannical ruler ; the deed of slaying a domineering dictator to free a people from oppression

Etymology: Around 514 BC, two Athenians, Harmodius and Aristogeiton, killed Hipparchus, a son of the Athenian tyrant Peisistratos. Later Athenians honored them as liberators, and their deed became the model for the idea that killing a tyrant was a civic act. The Greek term for this was "tyrannoktonos," literally "tyrant-slayer." The Latin form, "tyrannicida," combines "tyrannus," the Latin form of the Greek "tyrannos," with "-cida," from the Latin verb "caedere," "to cut down, to kill." That same suffix appears in "homicide," "regicide," and "suicide." Greek "tyrannos" originally meant a ruler who had seized power outside the normal hereditary line, and it did not yet carry the sense of cruelty that the English word now has. English took the word from Latin as a learned term, so it reads as a formal coinage rather than a folk word. It is used mainly in discussions of political philosophy and ethics, where writers ask whether killing a ruler can ever be justified.

Synonyms: tyrannicide