sacrificial

[sak-ruh-fish-uhl]

adjective

1. pertaining to or concerned with sacrifice.

sacrificial

/ ˌsækrɪˈfɪʃəl /

adjective

1. used in or connected with a sacrifice

Other Word Forms

• sacrificially adverb
• nonsacrificial adjective
• oversacrificial adjective
• oversacrificially adverb
• presacrificial adjective
• unsacrificial adjective
• unsacrificially adverb

Word History and Origins

Origin of sacrificial¹

1600–10; < Latin sacrifici ( um ) sacrifice + -al ¹

Example Sentences

Christian magazine Charisma further explained that throughout the Bible, “God commands His people to ‘defend the fatherless’ and to care for orphans with compassion, justice and sacrificial love.”

Read more on Salon

The limits of human understanding are probed as a sacrificial figure challenges the inscrutable order of the universe.

Read more on Los Angeles Times

“Having kids is sacrificial,” she told the New York Times last week.

Read more on Salon

Some will see him now as a victim, a sacrificial lamb, a man who had the bravery to speak up about the problems the club faced and who got driven out because of it.

Read more on BBC

Yet it resonates, albeit vague and unexplored, with biblical references to goat offerings and images of Jesus as a sacrificial lamb and the movie’s visual allusions to the goat-headed occult idol Baphomet.

Read more on Los Angeles Times

When To Use

What does sacrificial mean?

Sacrificial is used to describe things that involve a sacrifice—something important or precious that is given up for the sake of gaining something or allowing something to happen that is considered more important.The thing being sacrificed can be tangible, like a valued object, or intangible, like time or health, as in, I would never sacrifice my health just to make more money.The words sacrifice and sacrificial are often used in the context of religious offerings. Such a sacrifice might be an animal that is killed and offered to a god or gods.The term sacrificial lamb is a reference to such religious sacrifices and is often used in a metaphorical way to refer to someone who is sacrificed in some way for the benefit of others. The term is often used in overlapping ways with the word scapegoat.Example: Archaeologists think the site was once used for sacrificial rituals.