Verbicide stands for the act of “murdering a word”.
Sometimes we are using words carelessly and lightly, that they might loose their true meaning. For example, the word “awful” is actually dead. Nowadays, we can’t use it to describe something suggests awe, as it doesn’t bear that meaning anymore.
Awful is a synonym of terrible or nasty and that is its only meaning as of today, no matter what most of the dictionaries will tell you about its prior meaning.
When we adjust words in our everyday speech to mean something they were never intended to stand for, we are committing a word murder.
Yet, words are not dying in a second. We do tear them apart piece after piece. Everytime we use a word incorrectly, another piece of the meaning of the word is torn, until there are no more pieces and the word changes its meaning. For good.
