# victim

Pronunciation: say "VIK-tim" /ˈvɪktɪm/

## Noun

1. A person or thing that suffers harm or loss because of something else, such as a disaster, unfair treatment, hard conditions, or someone's mistakes, including one's own.
   - Simple: A person or thing hurt by something bad, such as a disaster, unfair treatment, or someone's mistakes.
   - _Thousands of small farms were victims of the long drought in the region._
   - _He was the victim of an optical illusion and swore the road curved._
2. A living being whose life is taken as a sacrificial offering, typically during a religious ceremony.
   - Simple: An animal or person killed as an offering to a god in a religious ceremony.
   - _Before the sacrifice, the priest sprinkled salted flour on the victim at the altar._
   - _Ancient texts specify which victims were acceptable to which gods._

## Other meanings

- (verb) To cause a person or thing to become a victim, most often by offering it up in a ritual sacrifice; the same as victimize.
- (noun) In Christianity, the body and blood of Christ as offered in the Eucharist.

## Origin

Goes back to Latin victima, meaning "sacrificial animal," which reached English through Middle French victime.

Source: DictionaryAI, https://dictionaryai.com/define/victim (written from Wiktionary data, CC BY-SA 4.0: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/).