[HarryT]

Originally Posted by Katsunami

Defenestrate: throwing someone out of a window

I first read it in an Eddings novel, and thought he made it up.

It sounds as if a Dutch word ended up in English... only the Dutch version doesn't exist.

In "defenestrate" I see "fenest(e)r", which looks and sounds the Dutch word "venster"; and this word actually is the Dutch word for "window". Therefore the Dutch translation of "defenestrate" would become "ontvensteren", and that word doesn't exist, as far as I know.

From the Online Etymology Dictionary:

defenestration (n.)
1620, "the action of throwing out of a window," from Latin fenestra "window" (see fenestration). A word invented for one incident: the "Defenestration of Prague," May 21, 1618, when two Catholic deputies to the Bohemian national assembly and a secretary were tossed out the window (they landed in a trash heap and survived) of the castle of Hradschin by Protestant radicals. It marked the start of the Thirty Years War.