Verbicide

Verbicide is a noun that refers to the deliberate distortion of a word's meaning. Our word of the day combines the word ‘verb’ with the Latin suffix C-I-D-E which refers to killing. It is a recent addition to the language and is almost always used in a tongue-in-cheek manner. The mayor’s frequent acts of verbicide probably harmed his political career. The word distortion that made me cringe the most was when he sought to make sure all his facts were grounded in ‘hysterical accuracy.’