de·fen·es·tra·tion
/dēˌfenəˈstrāSHən/
noun
- FORMAL•HUMOROUS the action of throwing someone out of a window. “death by defenestration has a venerable history”
- INFORMAL the action of dismissing someone from a position of power or authority. “that victory resulted in Churchill’s own defenestration by the war-weary British electorate”
I had a fairly elaborate dream last night where this word featured prominently however, within the dream, I was using it incorrectly. I was treating it as though it were some kind of a defensive strategy word which, perhaps that might be true within a certain perspective… but in the context of my dream it was certainly incorrect.
I am not 100% certain on where I heard the word but I think it was on a new podcast that I started listening to. The first series is about Russian secret police dating way back in history and the episode I was listening to dealt with the NKVD during the reign of Stalin.
While in the era of the NKVD they really preferred to just shoot people in the back of the head rather than toss them out a window, I know he made reference to someone getting thrown out of a window. (Richard Sorge?) So, perhaps, he used the word defenestration and it lodged itself into my subconscious. Defenestration has come more into vogue within the last 50 years or so as a commonly accepted method of eliminating your political enemies in Russia as it can be thinly veiled as a suicide.
The more interesting character (read: piece of human garbage) that I might have to look into is Lavrenti Beria. To summarize him based on the information relayed to me in this podcast… he was a pedophiliac, murderer-rapist that was at the top of Russia’s secret police apparatus during Stalin’s era. Just when you think it couldn’t get any worse than Stalin, you come across a guy like Beria. Go communism!
