Defenestration

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]

The defenestration of human beings has been used to commit murder; It has been suggested that a fall from six stories leads to death in 90% of cases [2].

Modern usage of the word

* Defenestration has become popular as a term for switching from MS Windows to Linux or another operating system [3]. It is claimed that this usage originated in the University of Helsinki in the mid-1990s.
* The slang term autodefenestration is increasingly used to refer to the act of throwing oneself out of a window, usually in order to evade capture or to commit suicide. The word does not yet appear in most dictionaries.

Defenestration throughout history

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 the Bible, there is an account in 2 Kings 9:30-33 of Queen Jezebel's defenestration as part of the overthrow of Ahab's tyranical reign.
*Also in the Bible, there is an account (Acts 20:9) of a man who fell from a window after falling asleep while listening to Saint Paul's over-long sermon.
*It has been suggested by several chronicles (notably the Annals of Westhide Abbey) that King John killed his nephew, Arthur of Brittany, by throwing him from a window in the castle at Rouen, France, in 1203.
*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 April 26, 1478, after the failure of the plot to murder Lorenzo de' Medici, Jacopo de' Pazzi was defenestrated.
*In 1572, French King Charles IX's friend, the Huguenot leader Gaspard de Coligny was killed in accordance with the wishes of Charles' mother, Catherine de Medici. Charles had allegedly said "then kill them all that no man be left to reproach me." Thousands of Protestants were killed in the St. Bartholomew's Day massacre after soldiers attacked Coligny in his house, stabbed him, and threw him out the window.
*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".
* In 1941, mafia informant Abe "Kid Twist" Reles fell to his death from a window on the sixth floor of the Half Moon Hotel on Coney Island, on the eve of his scheduled testimony. The angle of trajectory suggests that he was defenestrated rather than trying to flee.
*Jazz musician Chet Baker died after falling from a second story hotel window in Amsterdam on May 13, 1988, under mysterious circumstances.
*On June 27, 2006, amidst allegations of match fixing at Italy's Juventus Football Club, Gianluca Pessotto, the club's director of sport, threw himself from a fourth story window in an apparent suicide attempt, although he was not implicated in the scandal.

Defenestration in popular culture

Film

* In Reefer Madness (1936), Blanche, the dealer, defenestrates herself out of guilt.
*In Cinderella, (1950), Bruno the dog defenestrates Lucifer the cat.
*In Rear Window (1954), Lars Thorwald defenestrates L.B. Jeffries.
*In Diamonds Are Forever (1971), henchmen working for Ernst Stavro Blofeld defenestrated Plenty O'Toole.
* In A Clockwork Orange (1971), Alex defenestrates himself from the top-floor room where he's being held captive; though this was a suicide attempt, it proved unsuccessful.
*In The Exorcist (1973), the devil defenestrates Burke Dennings, and Father Karras defenestrates the devil/himself.
*In The Eagle Has Landed (1976), the patrons of a pub defenestrate Liam Devlin.
*In Die Hard (1988), John McClane attracts the attention of Sgt. Al Powell by defenestrating Marco, and later defenestrates Hans Gruber, the leader of the "terrorists".
*In Child's Play (1988), the first victim of the movie, Maggie (the babysitter) is defenestrated on Chicago's north side Lincoln Park, from the apartment's windowed tower.
*In Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade (1989), Indiana Jones defenestrates a Nazi officer from a Zeppelin.
*In Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves (1991), Friar Tuck defenestrates a Bishop, after accusing him of corruption.
*In Batman Returns (1992), Max Schreck pushes Selina Kyle (later to become Catwoman) out of a window in his penthouse office, in an attempt at homicide; the attempt would prove unsuccessful.
*In Braveheart (1995), Longshanks (King Edward I) defenestrates his son's High Councillor, Philip.
*In Toy Story (1995), Sheriff Woody accidentally defenestrates Buzz Lightyear.
*In Hannibal (2001), Hannibal Lecter defenestrates Rinaldo Pazzi.
*In Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith (2005), Mace Windu is defenestrated from Chancellor Palpatine's office by Palpatine's Force lightning.

Television

* In the second episode of the Firefly TV series, Malcom Reynolds is thrown through a holographic window, albeit fairly harmlessly.
* 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 Cowboy Bebop, Spike Spiegel is defenestrated by Vicious after their fight in session five, Ballad of Fallen Angels. The composition of the falling shots in this sequence resemble a slow-motion version of the recurring image of Eric Draven (the late Brandon Lee) being thrown out of the window of his apartment building in the movie version of The Crow.
*In the NCIS episode "Silver War", Special Agent Anthony "Tony" DiNozzo lists defenestration as an area in which he has investigating experience.

Video Games

* In the game Hitman: Blood Money, the player can throw targets out of windows and over balconies as methods of assassination.

Comics

* "A Nauseous Nocturne", an illustrated Calvin and Hobbes poem, includes the couplet
"The monster, in his consternation,
Demonstrates defenestration". [4]
* 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 [5].

External links

*Defenestration - Humor-oriented literary magazine.
*defenestrate - dictionary.com's Word of the Day for Tuesday January 25, 2000
*Defenestration Building - a large art installation in San Francisco, California
*The Bohemian rebels inspired some Philadelphia anarchists to publish a newspaper: the defenestrator.