menticide

English edit

From Latin mēns (“mind”) or mentālis (“mental”) +‎ -cide (“killing”), from Latin -cīdium, by analogy to homicide, genocide, etc. Coined during the 1950s.

menticide (countable and uncountable, plural menticides)

Brain-washing, conditioning people to abandon their beliefs.
- 1957, Joost Abraham Maurits Meerloo, Mental Seduction and Menticide: The Psychology of Thought Control and Brainwashing, London: Jonathan Cape, →OCLC, page 87:
  In the last phases of brainwashing and menticide, the self-humiliating submission of the victims serves as an inner defensive device annihilating the prosecuting inquisitor in a magic way.
Efforts to destroy the mind or the will of an individual or group of people.
- 1974, Herbert Foster, Ribbin', Jivin', and Playin' the Dozens: The Unrecognized Dilemma of Inner-city Schools, Cambridge, Massachusetts: Ballinger, →ISBN, page 6:
  In response, black groups accuse school personnel of practicing genocide and "menticide" (miseducation) for allowing black children to get away with conduct they would not condone in white children.
- 1989, Fielding McGehee, Rebecca Moore, The Need for a Second Look at Jonestown: Remembering its People, Lewiston, NY: E. Mellen Press, →ISBN, page 151:
  I wanted then — and I want today — no laws against "mental kidnapping" or "mentacide" or any other socially unacceptable state of mind.

brain-washing