a great or complete devastation or destruction, especially by fire.
a sacrifice completely consumed by fire; burnt offering.
(usually initial capital letter)the systematic mass slaughter of European Jews in Nazi concentration camps during World War II (usually preceded by the).
any mass slaughter or reckless destruction of life.
Origin of holocaust
1200–50;Middle English < Late Latinholocaustum (Vulgate) < Greekholókauston (Septuagint), neuter of holókaustos burnt whole. See holo-, caustic
Related formshol·o·caus·tal, adjectivehol·o·caus·tic, adjective
great destruction or loss of life or the source of such destruction, esp fire
Also called: the Churban, the Shoah(usually capital)the mass murder of Jews and members of many other ethnic, social, and political groups in continental Europe between 1940 and 1945 by the Nazi regime
mid-13c., "sacrifice by fire, burnt offering," from Greek holokauston "a thing wholly burnt," neuter of holokaustos "burned whole," from holos "whole" (see holo-) + kaustos, verbal adjective of kaiein "to burn." Originally a Bible word for "burnt offerings," given wider sense of "massacre, destruction of a large number of persons" from 1833. The Holocaust "Nazi genocide of European Jews in World War II," first recorded 1957, earlier known in Hebrew as Shoah "catastrophe." The word itself was used in English in reference to Hitler's Jewish policies from 1942, but not as a proper name for them.
Auschwitz makes all too clear the principle that the human psyche can create meaning out of anything. [Robert Jay Lifton, "The Nazi Doctors"]
