massacre
Americannoun
-
massacres
plural
-
the unnecessary, indiscriminate killing of a large number of human beings or animals, as in barbarous warfare or persecution or for revenge or plunder.
- Synonyms:
- genocide, butchery, extermination, carnage
-
a general slaughter, as of persons or animals.
the massacre of millions during the war.
- Synonyms:
- genocide, butchery, extermination, carnage
-
Informal. a crushing defeat, especially in sports.
verb (used with object)
-
massacres,
present (3rd person singular)
-
massacred,
past participle, past
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massacring
present participle
-
to kill unnecessarily and indiscriminately, especially a large number of persons.
- Synonyms:
- slay
-
Informal. to defeat decisively, especially in sports.
noun
-
the wanton or savage killing of large numbers of people, as in battle
-
informal an overwhelming defeat, as in a game
verb
-
to kill indiscriminately or in large numbers
-
informal to defeat overwhelmingly
Usage
What does massacre mean? A massacre is a large-scale killing of people or animals, especially defenseless ones. The word implies that such a killing was especially unnecessary, brutal, and indiscriminate. An event in which soldiers kill many civilians could be called a massacre. Mass shootings are massacres. Massacre can also be used in a more general way to refer to killing on a large-scale, as in This war will result in the massacre of millions. Massacre can also be used as a verb in both of these senses, as in The flock was massacred by the pack of wolves. Massacre is also used figuratively as a noun and a verb in the context of a decisive defeat, especially a one-sided sporting event, as in It was a massacre—we lost 12-0. Example: Every day, the news tells us of yet another massacre of innocent people by a person with a gun.
Synonym Usage
See slaughter.
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Nouns
Participles
Conjugated Forms
Present
-
massacresimple
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massacressimple
-
have massacredperfect
-
has massacredperfect
-
am massacringprogressive
-
are massacringprogressive
-
is massacringprogressive
-
have been massacringperfect progressive
-
has been massacringperfect progressive
Past
-
massacredsimple
-
had massacredperfect
-
was massacringprogressive
-
were massacringprogressive
-
had been massacringperfect progressive
Future
Etymology
Origin of massacre
First recorded in 1575–85; (noun), from Middle French massacre, noun derivative of massacrer, Old French maçacrer, macecler, probably from unattested Vulgar Latin matteūcculāre, verbal derivative of unattested matteūca “mallet” ( see mashie, mace 1); (verb) from Middle French massacrer
Explanation
A massacre is a big bloody mess of killing, and usually for no good reason. Not that there’s ever a good reason for killing, but massacres are especially pointless and gory. It’s unclear where the word massacre came from, but possibly it was the Old French word macacre, which means “slaughterhouse.” As a noun, massacre is a brutal slaughter of humans or animals, and it can be a verb as well, like when an army massacres an entire village of innocent people. Pronounce it like MASS-uh-ker, and remember to spell it with an acre at the end, which is how much land is needed to bury the bodies after a massacre.
Vocabulary lists containing massacre
This Week in Words: November 4 - 10, 2017
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Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban
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The American Revolution - Middle School and High School
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Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
See Examples For:
"For us, the main thing is that he was convicted and that he was serving his sentence," said Abdurahmanovic, whose brother went missing during the massacre and has never been found.
From Barron's ● Aug. 28, 2026
Intricate sculptural groups depict the Annunciation, the birth of Jesus, the Adoration of the Magi and the shepherds, Herod’s massacre of the innocents, the flight into Egypt, Jesus preaching at the temple, and more.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 14, 2026
Damon’s Odysseus is numbed by the massacre of Troy’s civilians; Fiennes’ hates himself for leading the best men of Ithaca to their death, gutting his own community in the heedless destruction of another.
From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 4, 2026
The Palestinian territory's Hamas-run interior ministry said the head of the local police station, Col Mohammed Marwan Salem, and several other officers were among those killed in what it condemned as a "massacre".
From BBC ● Jul. 14, 2026
Ferrets had cornered a band of shrews and were threatening to massacre them when a column of otters sprang to the rescue.
From "Redwall" by Brian Jacques
The 57-year-old said he had been studying in Zurich when the war broke out, and had been driven to return to Kosovo after seeing massacres of ethnic Albanians in his country.
From Barron's ● Feb. 18, 2026
The man in the tub is the French revolutionary Jean-Paul Marat, a journalist and physician who had incited a series of judicial massacres.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Dec. 21, 2025
No one really believes Mr. Museveni is a Good Guy, however much he may have opened up Uganda to—gasp!—“international capital,” a worse sin, in Mr. Mamdani’s eyes, than any of the massacres Amin committed.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Oct. 15, 2025
The protracted episode has been “shameful,” said Marcela Turati, a Mexican journalist whose book “San Fernando: Last Stop” chronicles the massacres and their aftermath.
From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 31, 2024
So Richard began to write a long article about the massacres.
From "Half of a Yellow Sun" by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
The tension on “The French Chef” was about a massacred bûche de noël or whether that roast-chicken-to-come was being abused.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 23, 2026
During a session on Iran's record, Bahreini urged the UN's top rights body to instead discuss the Iranian cultural heritage under "indiscriminate" attack and "the innocent children massacred at their school desks".
From Barron's ● Mar. 16, 2026
And then there’s bird flu, which isn’t just infecting dairy cows and poultry lately, but has also massacred millions of wild birds.
From Salon ● Oct. 20, 2024
Then the Virgin Mary, in a voice brimming with anguish and outrage, memorializes the student protesters who were massacred by Mexican armed forces in 1968.
From Seattle Times ● Apr. 18, 2024
He knew he’d been massacred by the oncoming players, capsized and dumped humiliatingly on the ground.
From "The Chocolate War" by Robert Cormier
But our current situation — the one that is becoming increasingly harder to ignore — really began about three years ago, when bird flu began spreading rapidly in wild birds, massacring millions of them.
From Salon ● Jun. 19, 2024
From Carrie massacring a whole prom with telekinesis to Sabrina Spellman’s Big Witch Energy, we must both respect teen emotions and fear them at the same time.
From The Guardian ● Feb. 22, 2020
She made it sound as if they were massacring endangered baby eagles.
From Slate ● Feb. 16, 2019
Not the Adams of Founding Father fame, but John Adams when he was a younger man, who in 1770 agreed to defend British soldiers accused of massacring Boston colonists.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 7, 2016
And that’s how it was that people away out in California could see our young hero lassoing a wild and woolly wicker table and massacring a whole tribe of cookies.
From Roy Blakeley's Bee-line Hike by Percy Keese Fitzhugh
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
