[f. as prec.: see -CIDE 2.] The action of killing a son or daughter.
1665. J. Webb, Stone-Heng (1725), 217. Homicide, Filicide, Fratricide, Patricide, Matricide and Regicide.
1839. F. Barham, The Adamus Exul of Grotius, 47.
Let not the race | |
Of mortal men, by one delirious deed, | |
Utterly perish, thro our filicide. |
1879. A. E. Sproul, in Boston Herald, 3 May. Additional details of the Pocasset filicide are given below.
Hence Filicidal a. concerned with the slaughter of sons and daughters.
1852. J. B. Owen, in Ld. Ingestres Meliora, I. 133. He had swallowed his children piecemeal, as at the banquet of a Thyestes, before his ruin realized the filicidal fable of Saturn, in swallowing his whole family, in the end.