[f. as prec. + -CIDE 2.] The act of destroying the sense or value of a word; the perversion of a word from its proper meaning.
1858. O. W. Holmes, Aut. Breakf.-t., i. (1859), 10. Homicide and verbicide—that is, violent treatment of a word with fatal results to its legitimate meaning…—are alike forbidden.
1886. Q. Rev., Jan., 177. It is ‘verbicide’ in a higher sense than that in which Oliver Wendell Holmes applied the term to punning.
