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Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English
infanticide
noun
EXAMPLES FROM CORPUS
Infanticide is a defence to murder, but it is more usual to charge infanticide in the first place.
▪ Female promiscuity in monkeys and apes can be explained by the need to share paternity among many males to prevent infanticide.
▪ Give or take a touch of infanticide.
▪ In some places, it meant maternal mortality and female infanticide.
▪ It is obviously a premise that underpins the definition of infanticide.
▪ Sarah Hrdy proposed that silent ovulation helps prevent infanticide because neither the husband nor the lover knows if he has been cuckolded.
▪ The Committee's solution was to persist with a separate offence of infanticide.
▪ Was this a massive bribe to save Will from a charge of infanticide and possibly the gallows?
The Collaborative International Dictionary
Infanticide

Infanticide \In*fan"ti*cide\, n. [L. infanticidium child murder; infans, -antis, child + caedere to kill: cf. F. infanticide. See Infant, and Homicide.] The murder of an infant born alive; the murder or killing of a newly born or young child; child murder.

Infanticide

Infanticide \In*fan"ti*cide\, n. [L. infanticida: cf. F. infanticide.] One who commits the crime of infanticide; one who kills an infant.

Douglas Harper's Etymology Dictionary
infanticide

1650s, "the killing of infants;" 1670s, "one who kills an infant," from infant + -cide.

Wiktionary
infanticide

n. 1 The murder of an infant. 2 The murder of a child by a parent; filicide. 3 The murderer of a child: a person who has committed infanticide. 4 (context zoology English) The killing of a young, immature animal by a mature adult of the same species.

WordNet
infanticide
  1. n. a person who murders an infant

  2. murdering an infant

Wikipedia
Infanticide

Infanticide (or infant homicide) is the intentional killing of infants or children.

Parental infanticide researchers have found that mothers are far more likely than fathers to be the perpetrator for neonaticide and slightly more likely to commit infanticide in general.

In many past societies, certain forms of infanticide were considered permissible. In some countries, female infanticide is more common than the killing of male offspring, due to sex-selective infanticide. In China for example, the gender gap between males and females aged 0–19 year old was estimated to be 25 million in 2010 by the United Nations Population Fund.

In English law infanticide is established as a distinct offence by the Infanticide Acts. Defined as the killing of a child under 12 months of age by their mother, the effect of the Acts are to establish a partial defence to charges of murder.

Infanticide (zoology)

In animals, infanticide involves the killing of young offspring by a mature animal of its own species, and is studied in zoology, specifically in the field of ethology. Ovicide is the analogous destruction of eggs. Although human infanticide has been widely studied, the practice has been observed in many other species throughout the animal kingdom. These include microscopic rotifers, insects, fish, amphibians, birds and mammals. Infanticide can be practiced by both males and females.

Infanticide caused by sexual conflict has the general theme of the killer (often male) becoming the new sexual partner of the victim's parent, which would otherwise be unavailable. This represents a gain in fitness by the killer, and a loss in fitness by the parents of the offspring killed. This is a type of evolutionary struggle between the two sexes, in which the victim sex may have counter-adaptations that reduce the success of this practice. It may also occur for other reasons, such as the struggle for food between females. In this case individuals may even kill closely related offspring.

Filial infanticide occurs when a parent kills its own offspring. This sometimes involves consumption of the young themselves, which is termed filial cannibalism. The behavior is widespread in fishes, and is seen in terrestrial animals as well. Human infanticide has been recorded in almost every culture. A unique aspect of human infanticide is selective infanticide based on gender.

Usage examples of "infanticide".

Or was infanticide against the rules Old Conc had set down for them, and would a warrior who so fell from grace be disciplined, exiled, or executed?

In addition, Ahl had heard of families who used infanticide to control the number of males and females in each generation.

The swellings, her very public estrus, were thus a way for Patch to control the males around her at minimal cost to herself, and to reduce the risk of infanticide.

On the home world, any infant so changed would have been exposed, but on the sailship infanticide was seldom practiced.

Infanticide was practised by many early cultures, with the rationale of preserving the best of the species.

It was the usual story of the infanticides committed by servant girls.

Ironically, reports of cannibalistic infanticide and incestuous orgies were among the particulars used by Roman authorities to persecute the early Christians.

And there's a third class of related claims, repressed `memories' of satanic ritual cults - in which sexual torture, coprophilia, infanticide and cannibalism are said to be prominently featured.

The US Army of Occupation in Japan was denying rumors that many infanticides were occurring in the areas around Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

The closest thing we've got to a birth control pill is infanticide!

In practice, nomadic hunter-gatherers space their children about four years apart by means of lactational amenorrhea, sexual abstinence, infanticide, and abortion.

As a major cause of infant death, infanticide is a serious evolutionary problem for animal mothers, who thereby lose their genetic investment in murdered offspring.

After several such pronouncements, aimed at curbing infanticide, had issued from New Borne, the luckless misborn had come to be called the "Pope's nephews," or the "Pope's children," by some.

After several such pronouncements, aimed at curbing infanticide, had issued from New Rome, the luckless misborn had come to be called the “Pope’s nephews,” or the “Pope’s children,” by some.

For some reason they never play dying in childbirth, or vomiting your guts out from the red dysentery, or weaving till you go blind and crippled from arthritis and dye poisoning, or infanticide.