Word coined in 1943 by the Jewish historian Raphael Lemkin to describe the atrocities commited against the Armenians in the Ottoman Empire. It is coined from the
root words genos (Greek for family, tribe or race) and -cide (Latin for killing). He first used the word in print in Axis Rule in Occupied
Europe: Laws of Occupation - Analysis of
Government - Proposals for Redress (1944).
Before World
War II, Lemkin was interested in the Armenian Genocide and campaigned in the League of Nations to
ban what he called "barbarity" and "
vandalism".