internecine

Definition

Mutually destructive; most often applied to warfare.

Etymology

Borrowed from Latin internecīnus (“deadly”), from internecium (“a massacre, bloodbath; an eradication”) + -īnus. In Latin, the sememe 'between' was here not expressed by the prefix, it instead either had a somewhat emphatic meaning or meant "down, under", comparable to its use in other Latin terms related to death: see interficiō and intereō. The English current sense is thus a reanalysis of the Latin through English inter-.

Example Sentences

• "Internecine strife in Gaza claimed its most senior victim yesterday when militants assassinated one of the most hated security chiefs there."
• "The Mongol people were plagued by internecine conflict until Genghis Khan unified them by focusing their aggression outwards on other peoples."
• "During the year of my engagement — 1869 — while I was out on the lecture platform, the daily letter that came for me generally brought me news from the front — by which expression I refer to the internecine war that was always going on in a friendly way between these two orthographists about the spelling of words."