γυναικοκτονία – yinekoktonia – the killing of women: femicide, feminicide or uxoricide.
A depressing choice of word chosen only because the word has been used a lot in the Greek media recently. Why? Because, in the past nine months, thirteen women have been killed by their partners or ex-partners. Of the three English words above, the first two refer to the killing of women because they are women. The third one refers specifically to wife-killing. In Greek γυναίκα means both woman and wife (like femme in French). There is a word for spouse, ο/η σύζυγος, but it is slightly more formal, though not as formal as ‘spouse’ in English. On a hunch I did an online search for συζυγοκτονία (syzygoktonia = spouse-killing) in the expectation that it did not exist, but it does as this headline from 30 July confirms:
Συζυγοκτονία στη Δάφνη: Αυτός είναι ο δολοφόνος -Τη σκότωσε γιατί τη ζήλευε παθολογικά = Spousal killing in Dafni. This is the murderer [photo] – He killed her because he was pathologically jealous of her
All of the “-cides” and -κτονίες are compound words in both English and Greek. They are more obvious in Greek because the root of the word before the suffix -κτονία is invariably from the ancient language, whereas in English the root is mostly Latinate in origin. To a Greek αδελφοκτονία will be immediately comprehensible, whereas in English a little Latin knowledge helps with ‘fratricide’. Indeed, it is required.
To form compound words ending in -κτονία, a good rule of thumb is to change the last letter of the first part (ie the victim) to omicron. Some more examples:
βρέφος = infant, βρεφοκτονία = infanticide
άνθρωπος = man/human being, ανθρωποκτονία = homicide
γυναίκα = woman, γυναικοκτονία = femicide or uxoricide
γένος = race, γενοκτονία = genocide
βασιλιάς = king, βασιλοκτονία = regicide
αυτός = self, αυτοκτονία = suicide
Finally, a Greek friend tells me γυναικοκτονία has a wider meaning which covers the abuse and maltreatment of women and girls. The definition of femicide in the Wiki entry tends to support this wider definition.