Femicide is centered within the home. The term "femicide" was first used in England in 1801 to signify "the killing of a woman." In 1848, this term was published in Wharton's Law Lexicon. Another term used is "feminicide", which is properly formed from the Latin "femina", meaning "woman" ("femicide" being truncated). The current usage emerged with the 1970s feminist movements, which aimed to raise feminine consciousness and resistance against gender oppression. American author, Carol Orlock, is widely credited with initiating the usage of the term in this context in her unpublished anthology on femicide. Diana Russell publicised the term at the
Femicide motive is not always empirically possible to be determined, and so must be removed from the qualification for femicide in order to gather data. On the other hand, authors Desmond Ellis and Walter Dekesedery take a different approach by viewing the definition for femicide as "the intentional killing of females by males". These feminists require that femicide always be intentional unlike the inclusion of covert femicide in Diana Russell's definition. Most of these definitions imply that the perpetrator of femicide is a man, but South Asian feminists differ in their definition stating that femicide is "the intentional killing of females