Verbicide: 1. the willful distortion or depreciation of the original meaning of a word. 2.a person who willfully distorts the meaning of a word.
Quotes:
“Life and language are alike sacred. Homicide and verbicide --that is, violent treatment of a word with fatal results to its legitimate meaning, which is its life--are alike forbidden”.
-- Oliver Wendell Holmes, "The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table," The Atlantic Monthly, 1857
“Men often commit verbicide because they want to snatch a word as a party banner, to appropriate its' selling quality'”.
-- C.S. Lewis, Studies in Words, 1960
