I came upon this word quite innocently during my daily perusal of Wikipedia’s Recent Death’s list. A certain Mr. Marek Špilár(God bless cut and paste!) a Slovakian footballer, had commit suicide by self-defenestration at the tender age of 38. What could this mean?? Of course with my intensely morbid sense of curiosity I had to know. It sounded like a dark and sinister method of suicide that has such appeal those who revel in the Gothic romance of depression. With no disrespect to the late Mr. Špilár, I felt I must begin my investigation of this deliciously dark sounding mystery immediately. Lovingly and giddy with the immense anticipation of a neurotic madwoman, I dove into my research and clicked on those tantalizing words which sent me into illumination.
It sent me to a page headed by the word Defenestration and immediately my eyes drifted left to the small illustrations provided. AHA! They were old black and white drawings! Possibly European from as far back as the Middle Ages! My mind went immediately to thoughts of torture devices and screaming crowds of the angry masses…I had to look more closely! I had to know! There was chaos in each picture! Small mobs of men each one carrying a man toward a window! This was too much mystery to be endured…so my eyes greedily went back to the right and began reading as fast as I could.
“Defenestration is the act of throwing someone or something out of a window” Wikipedia informs me. Hmmm. Interesting. I felt some disappointment that Mr. Marek Špilár was not a darkly romantic hero whose depression drove him to some bizarre act of mutilation…he was just a jumper. A jumper. Sigh. Probably a mentally unstable guy given to bouts of depression and couldn’t overcome the end of his sports career so he chucks himself out of a window. A sad story, but not uncommon or shocking.
This aside, I still felt some moderate excitement with the word. Why would a contributor to Wikipedia phrase it as such? This can’t be a common term! And dear God who would have ever thought there was an actual word for it? Or that there could even be any such need? What sort of mind would devise such a term? But the spell had been broken and only a mild curiosity to know anymore remained. Still, I felt that this word was worthy of notice and I believe worth of sharing.
I will have to try to remember it…and find some use for it. I’m sure during many break ups spurned lovers have committed the grievous act of defenestration against innocent cell phones and computers. Far stranger things have happened indeed.