The original sky door: Make the bad men fly

Defenestrate is a word I would like to use in my every day life. It is a verb meaning to throw out a window, most often referring to a person. I have only ever heard this word twice. Once when learning about the Defenestrations of Prague, and one in reference to a spell in dungeons and dragons. Of course if anyone is going to pick up on an amazing obscure vocabulary word it is going to be those guys. So how does a word like this come to exists? It appears to have been created specifically for the second Defenestration of Prague as a historic event. The Emperor had guaranteed the protestants of Bohemia freedom to practice their religion. When two protestant church constructions were shut down by Roman Catholic officials the people were upset. The men who were set by the Emperor to protect protestant rights called a meeting in Prague. The two men found responsible for stopping construction were tried and found guilty of defying the emperors law, and along with their secretary were ejected from the third story window of Hradčany castle where the meeting was held. After falling 70 feet all three men survived. The Catholics claimed the virgin Mary and the Angels rescued them and the Protestants claimed it was because they landed in a pile of horse poo. This took place in 1618 and was involved in the beginning of the 30 years war. The first know written account including this word is from 1620 in a collection of letter. The Latin routes make sense, conveying the words meaning perfectly, de-- down from, fenestra-- window.

 Hradčany castle in Prague, site of second Defenestration of Prague
 DigitalExtropyCreative Commons Attribution 3.0