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Defenestration

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Look up defenestration in Wiktionary, the free dictionary.
For the heavy metal band, see Defenestration (band).

Defenestration is the act of throwing someone or something out of a window. The word comes from the Latin de ("from; out of") and fenestra ("window"). Merriam-Webster's dictionary users named it as one of their favorite words of the year in 2004. [1]

Defenestration is often fatal.

Matthäus Merian's impression of the 1618 Defenestration of Prague

Defenestration throughout history

Giorgio Vasari's impression of the St. Bartholomew's Day massacre

Historically, the word defenestration was used to refer to an act of political dissent. Notably, the Defenestrations of Prague in 1419 and 1618 helped to trigger prolonged conflict within Bohemia and beyond. Catholics ascribed the survival of those defenestrated at Prague Castle in 1618 to divine intervention, while Protestants claimed that it was due to their landing in a large pile of manure.

Other notable events in Prague's history include the defenestration of the Old-Town portreeve along with the bodies of seven murdered New-Town aldermen in 1483, and the death in 1948 of politician Jan Masaryk, whose body was found in the courtyard of the Foreign Ministry, below his bathroom window. A 2004 police investigation into his death concluded that, contrary to the initial ruling, he did not commit suicide, but was defenestrated by his opponents.

  • In 1383, Bishop Dom Martinho was defenestrated by the citizens of Lisbon, having been suspected of conspiring with the enemy when Lisbon was besieged by the Castilians.
  • On the morning of December 1 , 1640, a group of noblemen who wanted to restore full independence to Portugal started a revolution, immediately supported by the people. They found Miguel de Vasconcelos, the hated Secretary of State, hidden in a closet, killed him and defenestrated him. His corpse was left to the public outrage.
  • The Revolutions of 1848 in France led to a period of unrest in Germany. When an agitated crowd forced their way into the town hall in Cologne on March 3, two city councillors panicked and jumped out of the window; one of them broke both his legs. The event went down in the city’s history as the "Cologne Defenestration".

Film

Television

  • In the second episode of the Firefly TV series, Malcom Reynolds is thrown through a holographic window, albeit fairly harmlessly.
  • Dozens of episodes of the TV series Angel feature a character thrown through a window. In the final season, this occurs in nearly every episode.
  • Angel is himself tossed through the front window of the Summers' home in the seventh episode of Buffy the Vampire Slayer by Buffy, who erroneously thinks that he attacked her mother.
  • In the "Art Attack" episode of Dark Angel, Mr. Develia orders one of his men to defenestrate a man who failed to deliver his Norman Rockwell painting.
  • The two talk shows hosted by David Letterman have often included a gag where someone defenestrates objects such as televisions, watermelons etc.
  • In the NCIS episode "Silver War", Special Agent Anthony "Tony" DiNozzo lists defenestration as an area in which he has investigating experience.
  • In the Cowboy Bebop episode "Ballad of Fallen Angels", Vicious throws Spike through a church window.
  • In the Comedy Central TV series Reno 911!, Carrottop throws a couch through a window.
  • In Lost when Hurley is discussing the cursed numbers with his lawyer, someone flies past the office's window, probably defenestrated.

Video Games

  • In the game Def Jam: Fight for NY, the final battle against Crow (voiced by Snoop Dogg) requires that the player throw him out of a window in order to win.

Comics

  • "A Nauseous Nocturne", an illustrated Calvin and Hobbes poem, includes the couplet
    "The monster, in his consternation,
    Demonstrates defenestration". [2]
  • In Hitman, a comic book by Garth Ennis, there is a character known as Defenestrator. His "power" consists of carrying around a plate glass window and throwing people through it.
  • In Frank Miller's Sin City, defenestration is used as both an escape method, by Marv in The Hard Goodbye, and an offensive attack move, when Manute throws Dwight McCarthy out of a window in A Dame to Kill For; both are later blasted out of windows by Ava Lord. Wallace later throws Manute out of a window in Hell and Back.

Music

  • In the mid 1970s, rock band Led Zeppelin would rent out entire floors of hotels, where they originated many of rock's most famous legends of drunken excess by allegedly trashing the rooms, motorcycling in the halls, and defenestrating television sets.
  • The word defenestration is used in the Tom Tom Club song "Booming and Zooming" as a lyrical synonym for activating an ejection seat.
  • "Defenestration" is the name of songs by Gundula Krause, Storyboard, and Cryptopsy.
  • There is a free jazz band in Houston, Texas, called The Defenestration Unit.
  • Defenstration (2001) is the second album of New Zealand based celtic band Jacky Tar.
  • The popular children's song "Threw It Out the Window" inserts incongruous themes of defenestration into existing nursery rhymes [3].

An alternative modern usage of the word

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