terminate with extreme prejudice

First appears c. 1969. Derives from US military intelligence and CIA documents, in news coverage of the Green Beret Case, and further popularized in the movie Apocalypse Now (1979).^[1] A play on the term terminate with prejudice when an employee’s employment is terminated,^[2] meaning will not rehire employee to same position in future (i.e., prejudiced against rehiring), hence terminate definitively, i.e., kill.

terminate with extreme prejudice (third-person singular simple present terminates with extreme prejudice, present participle terminating with extreme prejudice, simple past and past participle terminated with extreme prejudice)

1. (euphemistic, US) To murder; to assassinate.

   The government ordered the spies to be terminated with extreme prejudice: they did not want them to expose what they knew in a public trial.

   • 1969 August 14, Terence Smith, “Details of Green Beret Case Are Reported in Saigon”, in The New York Times:

     ...suggested that he either be isolated or ‘terminated with extreme prejudice.’ This term is said to be an intelligence euphemism for execution.

   • 1979, Apocalypse Now:

     Colonel Lucas: ... When you find the Colonel, infiltrate his team by whatever means available and terminate the Colonel's command.
     Willard: Terminate the Colonel?
     ...
     Civilian: Terminate with extreme prejudice.

• tweep
• extreme prejudice

• with prejudice
• without prejudice

• wet work
• assassination

• Douglas Valentine, The Phoenix Program, 1990
• Jeff Stein, A Murder in Wartime