Fratricide is the act of a person killing his or her brother. The word fratricide derives from the Latin word frater (meaning: "brother").
Compare with sororicide (the killing of one's sister), child murder (the killing of an unrelated child), infanticide (systematic killings of a large number of children), filicide (the killing of a child by his or her parent), and patricide (the killing of a parent by his or her child).
The word is also used in a military context to refer to friendly fire incidents.
Fratricides in literature
Last updated: 05-15-2005 05:41:53