1. the deliberate distortion or destruction of the meaning of a word
Usage: literary; formal

Examples

• The politician’s constant misuse of ‘literally’ was a clear case of verbicide.
• Marketing jargon often commits verbicide by emptying words of their original meaning.
• The author criticized the verbicide that occurs when technical terms are misused in popular media.
• Academic writing sometimes suffers from verbicide when complex concepts are oversimplified.
• The deliberate verbicide of ‘freedom’ in propaganda made the word meaningless.
• Critics accused the company of verbicide for redefining ‘natural’ to suit their products.