DictionaryAI

massacre

MAS-uh-kur/ˈmæs.ə.kə(ɹ)/

Pluralmassacres

Verbmassacres, massacring, massacred

7 meanings of massacre

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  1. 1
    nouncountable
    The killing of a large number of people, usually those who can offer little resistance, with indiscriminate and unnecessary violence.

    Survivors described the massacre as something they would never forget.

    International observers demanded an inquiry into the massacre of unarmed protesters.

    Similarslaughter, bloodbath, carnage, butchery, atrocity

    Note

    Behind the word stands a butcher's trade. Old French macacre and macecre meant "slaughterhouse, butchery," and English took the word from Middle French in 1580, so the image of the shambles has never quite left it. As a proper name it is capitalized and tied to a date or place: the St. Bartholomew's Day Massacre, the St. Valentine's Day Massacre, the Amritsar Massacre.

  2. 2
    verbtransitive
    To kill people in large numbers when they can offer little resistance, with indiscriminate and unnecessary violence.

    Government troops massacred hundreds of civilians during the uprising.

    The general ordered his men to massacre the defenders without mercy.

    Similarslaughter, butcher, exterminate, annihilate

  3. 3
    nounfigurativelycountable
    An overwhelming defeat in a game or sport, with one side winning by a wide margin.

    The final score turned what was billed as a close contest into a massacre.

    Fans left at halftime, unable to watch the massacre unfold any further.

    Similarrout, drubbing, thrashing, trouncing, whitewash

  4. 4
    verbfigurativelytransitive
    To defeat an opponent very decisively, winning by a wide margin.

    Our team massacred the visitors in the second half.

    They fully expected to massacre their rivals on home turf.

    Similarthrash, trounce, rout, crush, hammer

  5. 5
    verbfigurativelytransitive
    To give a very bad rendition of a musical, dramatic, or other work.

    The nervous student massacred the sonata at the recital.

    Please don't massacre the national anthem again the way you did last year.

    Similarbutcher, murder, mangle, botch, ruin

  6. 6
    verbnonstandardtransitive
    To kill someone in an extremely violent or brutal way.

    The attacker massacred his victim in a savage frenzy.

    Such fury could drive anyone to massacre a defenseless person.

    Similarbutcher, slaughter

    Note

    Careful writers object to this use, in which a single victim is killed savagely. To them the verb's core meaning, killing in large numbers, makes one "massacre" sound wrong. The Godfather (1972) made the use famous: "Look how they massacred my boy." Oddly, the obsolete "murder" sense once covered a single death. In formal writing, keep the word for many victims.

Less common meaning

  1. 7
    nounobsoletecountable or uncountable
    Murder; the unlawful killing of a person.
    The tyrannous and bloody act is done,— The most arch deed of piteous massacre That ever yet this land was guilty of.
    c. 1593, William Shakespeare, “The Tragedy of Richard the Third:”
    Note

    An older, narrower use that carried no sense of numbers at all. Shakespeare's Richard the Third calls a "tyrannous and bloody act" "the most arch deed of piteous massacre," with the weight on cruelty rather than scale. In early texts the word can simply mean murder. Today it would be read as the slaughter of many, so this sense belongs to reading, not writing.

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Origin

First recorded around 1580, from Middle French massacre, from Old French macacre and related forms meaning "slaughterhouse, butchery," usually thought to come from a verb meaning "to slaughter." It also appears in Medieval Latin mazacrium, but its further origin is disputed, with proposed sources including Latin macellum ("butcher shop"), a Vulgar Latin verb, and a Middle Low German word for "to massacre."