‘Murder’ Reference library
Anne Button
The Oxford Companion to Shakespeare (2 ed.)
...Murder’ is impersonated by Demetrius in Titus Andronicus 5.2. Anne...
murder Quick reference
A Dictionary of Law Enforcement (2 ed.)
... Unlawful homicide that does not fall into the categories of manslaughter or infanticide . The mens rea for murder is traditionally known as malice aforethought and the punishment (since 1965) is life imprisonment . Murder is subject to the special defences of diminished responsibility , suicide pact, and loss of control , which serve to reduce the defendant's conviction from murder to voluntary...
murder Quick reference
World Encyclopedia
... Unlawful killing of a person, performed with malice or forethought. Committed accidentally, under sufficient provocation or in self-defence, a killing may not constitute murder...
murder Quick reference
The Oxford Dictionary of Idioms (4 ed.)
... murder get away with murder succeed in doing whatever you choose without being punished or suffering any disadvantage. informal murder will out murder cannot remain 🅘 This expression was used by Chaucer in The Prioress’s Tale...
murder- Quick reference
The Oxford Dictionary of Architecture (4 ed.)
...- or murdering-hole Small opening in the ceiling of an entrance- vestibule of a tower-house or castle from which intruders or unwelcome visitors would be inspected, or, if needs be,...
murder Quick reference
Oxford Dictionary of Word Origins (3 ed.)
...murder [OE] The ancient root of murder is shared by Latin mors ‘death’, from which mortal [LME] also derives, as do words at mortuary . In his Canterbury Tales Geoffrey Chaucer wrote ‘Murder will out’. The idea is older, but his concise way of expressing it ensured that it became proverbial. From the 18th century blue was thought of as the colour of plagues and of harmful things in general, and someone being attacked would cry or scream blue murder to emphasize their plight. The phrase now refers to making a noisy...
murder Quick reference
A Dictionary of Law (10 ed.)
... n. Unlawful homicide that does not fall into the categories of manslaughter or infanticide . The mens rea for murder is traditionally known as malice aforethought —an intention to kill or an intention to cause grievous bodily harm where as a result the victim dies. The punishment (since 1965 ) is life imprisonment . Murder is subject to the special defences of diminished responsibility , suicide pact, and loss of control , which serve to reduce the defendant’s conviction from murder to voluntary manslaughter...
murder Reference library
Garner's Modern English Usage (5 ed.)
... . A. And homicide; manslaughter; man-killing. Homicide is the killing of another human being; it is the general legal term. ( See homicide .) Murder is the unlawful killing of a human being with malice aforethought. It is the most heinous kind of criminal homicide. At common law, murder was not subdivided; but in most American jurisdictions statutes have created first-degree murder , second-degree murder , and third-degree murder (in descending order of reprehensibility). Indeed, second-degree murder is the same as common-law murder,...
Murder Reference library
The Oxford Companion to Crime and Mystery Writing
...kept offstage, undercutting the awful reality of murder in order to allow readers to look at the puzzle as an entertainment. Even in books of this lighthearted nature, the fact of murder is usually taken seriously to the point that the reader believes the sleuth will stop at nothing until the murderer is identified. Some inverted detective novels may also use humor , which may be easily sustained when a would-be murderer keeps bungling the job, as is the case in Richard Hull 's Murder of My Aunt ( 1934 ) and Nigel Williamson's The Wimbledon Poisoner ...
murder Reference library
The Oxford Companion to Medicine (3 ed.)
... Very few doctors or nurses have committed murder, and, apart from the dreadful circumstances of the Holocaust , most of the incidents have been in a domestic setting. In January 2001 , however, a former single-handed doctor in Manchester, UK, was convicted of murdering fifteen of his elderly women patients (and forging the will of one of them). He had given them injections of heroin, mostly on afternoon house calls, and research after the trial suggested that the total of murdered patients might have been much higher, possibly another 256 cases. Harold...
murder Reference library
The Oxford Companion to the Body
...of a good murder. By definition, a murder is a homicide (the killing of one human being by another) that is committed intentionally, or with malice aforethought. All legal codes classify it as a crime; where the element of intent exists and there are no extenuating circumstances, the penalty may be death or life imprisonment. It is thus important that doctors and legal investigators — those routinely confronted by cases of sudden and unexplained death — have some way to determine whether they are dealing with murder, suicide (self-murder), or an...
Murder Reference library
R. J. Macrides
The Oxford Dictionary of Byzantium
...their property divided between their family and the victim's family. Better sources for the circumstances in which murders occurred are the confessions preserved in the writings of Demetrios Chomatenos and John Apokaukos from 13th-C. Epiros. These are cases of spontaneous attacks provoked by trespassing on property or insults to personal honor. Although they do not provide a full range of murder cases, they do give examples of everyday murder in rural communities and show that even the innocent needed protection from civil officials, who moved in and...
murder Quick reference
A Dictionary of English Folklore
... . In earlier centuries, chapbooks and broadsides catered for public curiosity about crimes; many were based on murder trials and (real or alleged) confessions of murderers before they were hanged, garnished with sensational details and moralizing comments, and often with folkloric details. For instance, the murder of Maria Marten by her lover at Polstead (Suffolk) in 1827 was supposedly discovered because her mother dreamt three times of the ‘Red Barn’ where her corpse was hidden; the case became so famous that models of the barn were sold as...
Murder Reference library
The Oxford Companion to the Bible
...home without harm. Of course, these institutions of a redeemer and of cities of refuge sometimes failed, for not everyone respected the laws governing both. In cases in which a murder occurred but the murderer was not known, the nearest town had a special ritual by which the people were exonerated of collective guilt ( Deut. 21.1–9 ). The problem of adjudicating responsibility for murder was no simple matter. If an owner of a dangerous ox had been warned because of its habitual goring but failed to keep the ox under control so that it killed someone, the owner...
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A Dictionary of the Bible (2 ed.)
... Unlawful killing was prohibited in the * Ten Commandments (Exod. 20: 13), for which capital * punishment was prescribed (Exod. 21: 12). Safe havens, however, were available for those who had killed another accidentally (Deut. 19: 5), subject to enquiry when the offender reached the gate of the designated city (Num. 35: 24). This provision acted as a restraint on tit‐for‐tat killings and the consequential social unrest. At the Return from Exile the system of asylum was replaced by the judiciary (Ezra 7: 25–6), but under the Romans the right to inflict...
Murder Quick reference
Oxford Essential Quotations (6 ed.)
...‘Fragment of an Agon’ Television has brought back murder into the home—where it belongs. Alfred Hitchcock 1899 – 1980 British -born film director in Observer 19 December 1965 television has brought back murder murder into the home murder into the home English law does not permit good persons, as such, to strangle bad persons, as such. T. H. Huxley 1825 – 95 English biologist letter in Pall Mall Gazette , 31 October 1866 In that case, if we are to abolish the death penalty, let the murderers take the first step. Alphonse Karr 1808 – 90 ...
Murder Reference library
Oxford Dictionary of Humorous Quotations (5 ed.)
... Murder Murder Lizzie Borden took an axe And gave her mother forty whacks; When she saw what she had done She gave her father forty-one! Anonymous : popular rhyme in circulation after the acquittal of Lizzie Borden, in June 1893, from the charge of murdering her father and stepmother at Fall River, Massachusetts on 4 August 1892 Lizzie Borden took an axe Lizzie Borden took an axe gave her mother forty whacks You can't chop your poppa up in Massachusetts, Not even if it's planned as a surprise No you can't chop your poppa up in Massachusetts You know...
murder Reference library
Australian Law Dictionary (3 ed.)
...and Criminal Code 1913 (WA) ss 278–279). In all Australian jurisdictions except WA, intentional murder ( wilful murder ) requires either an intention to kill or an intention to cause grievous bodily harm , where that harm led to death. In WA intentional murder comprises two distinct offences: wilful murder (s 278: intention to kill) and murder (s 279: intention to cause grievous bodily harm where that harm led to death). At common law reckless murder occurs where a person acts in the knowledge that the probable consequences will be death or grievous...
murder clause (US) Quick reference
A Dictionary of Construction, Surveying and Civil Engineering (2 ed.)
... clause ( US ) A contract clause that unfairly shifts the responsibility to another party who should not carry the...
murder hole ([Co]) Quick reference
The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Archaeology (3 ed.)
... hole ( machicolation ) [Co] An opening in the ceiling of an enclosed gateway or the parapet of a wallwalk through which missiles or burning oil could be thrown onto attackers...
