1826 St. James's Chron. 30 Mar. (advt.) Lecture on verbicide, by a man of the law.

1858 O. W. Holmes Autocrat of Breakfast-table i. 12 Homicide and verbicide—that is, violent treatment of a word with fatal results to its legitimate meaning..—are alike forbidden.

1932 Nevada State Jrnl. 27 Apr. 1/1 I did..commit violence upon the English language by then and there performing manslaughter upon a respectable noun thereof, to-wit, eclectic,..said crime being known as Verbicide.

1986 Stud. Eng. Lit. 1500–1900 26 494 Such excommunication would best be done by a total omission of the word from the Dictionary... That act of verbicide Johnson would never commit.

2014 North Devon Jrnl. (Nexis) 29 May 14 I wrote..in this very column about the wanton verbicide of the word ‘sick’.

1844 Bombay Times 5 June 359/2 The practise most conspicuous amongst..Griffins of interlarding their conversation with numerous verbicidal thefts from the Hindostanee.

1978 Forum on Med. Apr. 85/1 Other verbicidal entertainers who were school dropouts have also received ‘honorary’ degrees.

2010 Joplin (Missouri) Globe 9 Dec. 9 a/2 They'd mangle a phrase without malice aforethought, so natural were their verbicidal tendencies.

1864 Evening Bull. (San Francisco) 29 Aug. 3/6 A villainous verbicide asked us..why these Vancouver-bound chaps were like a maiden who had..been left by her lover all forlorn..? Because, said he—they're for Sooke.

1894 Let. in Argus (Melbourne) 10 Jan. It is this laziness in speaking which makes them [sc. the Australians] grow up habitual verbicides.

1976 Winnipeg Free Press 20 Mar. (New Leisure section) 13/5 Mr. Ford has distinguished himself as a verbicide. He has killed the word, detente.

1999 W. J. Dominik & W. T. Wehrle Rom. Verse Satire 158 Both Accius and Pacuvius were attacked by Lucilius as verbicides.