This article focuses on the discursive and defining reformulation of violence against women by Latin American intellectuals in Mexico and Costa Rica for 20 years. It aims to identify the defining strategies used by femicidio and feminicidio concepts to denounce, conceptualise and politicise violence, especially in the intimate space. By combining the contributions of sociological and linguistic thinking, this contribution highlights the interlinked dynamics between the context of mobilisation, the discursive formulation of new concepts and the introduction of new legal categories on the public agenda.