killing field

[kil-ing feeld]

noun

1. a site of indiscriminate and cruel killing of large numbers of people, especially a place of wartime genocide.

   The concentration camps of Germany and the killing fields of Cambodia are graphic displays of the presence of evil in our world.

2. a dangerous place where an excessive number of people have died, as by murder, riots, or drug overdose.

   Some 300 lives are violently ended each year on the killing fields of New York's streets and sidewalks, about half of them pedestrians or cyclists.

Word History and Origins

Origin of killing field¹

First recorded in 1980–85

Example Sentences

On the killing fields of eastern Ukraine, they tend to be small short-range ones, typically measuring around just 10 inches, and they carry lethal explosive devices.

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Last week, he threatened to expand military action into Colombia if the country’s president, Gustavo Petro, doesn’t “close these killing fields immediately.”

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Israeli soldiers in Gaza have themselves described the aid sites as “killing fields.”

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But on 22 April, the tranquil valley hit global headlines when a sprawling meadow here turned into killing fields.

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The Haaretz report includes firsthand testimony from multiple Israeli soldiers, one of whom described his post as a “killing field,” where “between one and five people were killed every day.”

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