Word of the Day Archive
Sunday November 2, 2003
internecine \in-tuhr-NES-een; -NEE-syn; -NEE-sin\ , adjective:
1. Of or relating to conflict within a nation, an organization, or a group.
2. Mutually destructive; involving or accompanied by mutual slaughter.
3. Deadly; destructive; marked by slaughter.
It was directed locally and regionally by mid-level party bosses . . . who were likely to be engaged in internecine feuding.
-- Michael H. Kater, The Twisted Muse
The Mexican government, wracked with internecine struggle and hopelessly in debt, had threatened to nationalize American oil companies.
-- Susan Hertog, Anne Morrow Lindbergh: Her Life
While the Seven Years' War resolved none of Europe's internecine conflicts, so far as North America and the British Empire were concerned, this immense conflict changed everything, and by no means only for the better.
-- Fred Anderson, Crucible of War
During the months of war and the internecine street fighting, coal and wood supplies ran out and houses went unheated.
-- Edmund White, Marcel Proust
Internecine is from Latin internecinus, from internecare, "to destroy utterly, to exterminate," from inter- + necare, "to kill," from nec-, nex, "violent death."
Dictionary.com Entry and Pronunciation for internecine
