1932 U.S. Patent 1,851,952 2/2 By supplying a biocide, fireproofing, or other protective agent..in powdered form, these may be readily applied in admixture with the adhesive base.

1962 R. L. Carson Silent Spring (1963) ii. 7 Can anyone believe it is possible to lay down such a barrage of poisons on the surface of the earth without making it unfit for all life? They should not be called ‘insecticides’, but ‘biocides’.

1991 S. Gibson & R. Gibson Homoeopathy for Everyone (new ed.) vi. 93 This, along with the increasing use of biocides..in food-crop production..has reduced the quality of the food we eat.

2005 Allergy Apr. 29/2 Normally a biocide is added to this water to prevent growth of bacteria.

1947 Sat. Rev. Lit. (U.S.) 30 Aug. 21/3 ‘Biocide’, or destruction of the tissues of the human body, is caused by all the unphysiologic habits that civilization has imposed upon the human race.

1963 W. G. Holbrook in Sat. Rev. (U.S.) 19 Jan. 23 I have encountered the term ‘biocide’ used in a context similar to genocide..namely, the destruction of living species by indirect chemical, or, for that matter, nuclear, poisons.

1981 J. Somerville Soviet Marxism & Nucl. War xii. 151 We might use the new word, biocide, or better still, omnicide... Thermonuclear conflict can kill everybody, and not only every person, but every animal and plant..and everything created by life.

2003 A. Mitzman Prometheus Revisited 25 Worst of all, our very productivity, given its present mismanagement, menaces the earth with biocide.