Occiso is a term that comes from Latin, specifically from the vocable occisus which means killed and which in turn comes from the verb occedere, which means to cut, assassinate or kill. A deceased person is therefore a person who has died due to some tragic cause, for example an accident or a murder.
It is a fairly rare cultism in colloquial language. Thus, in the sentence "Three deceased persons in a car accident", the word deceased could be replaced by dead.
The use of the term
Although occiso is not part of the usual vocabulary, it is used in certain contexts of the language. In this sense it appears with some frequency in the field of criminology, forensic medicine or in the field of law. It must be borne in mind that a deceased person is not just any deceased but one who has died from unnatural causes, a circumstance that must be rigorously addressed and subjected to a detailed investigation.
Different ways of referring to the dead
Someone is dead when their vital signs stop working. However, we refer to the dead in different ways and each one of them contributes some unique nuance. The deceased person is a corpse, a term that only refers to the human body. The same happens with the word deceased or even with the colloquial term stiff. Instead, a victim is a deceased person but the word victim refers to the cause of death.
A murdered person is also a lifeless body and in this case it refers to a violent act. A deceased is a singular way of mentioning a lifeless body and through this word the violent form of death is emphasized.
The deceased today
Deaths produced by violent causes can occur in any place or social context. However, many studies show that the number of deceased is directly related to marginalization, overpopulation and citizen insecurity. For this reason, they tend to focus on particular countries and cities, especially in large cities where ghettos linked to violent phenomena are created.
In any case, the number of deceased per thousand inhabitants is a highly relevant statistical data when assessing the quality of life and public safety of a locality. Statistics related to the deceased show that cities such as Baltimore, Caracas, San Salvador or Acapulco are at the forefront of this type of event.
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