slaughterhouse
Americannoun
noun
Other Word Forms
Noun Inflected Forms
Etymology
Origin of slaughterhouse
Explanation
A slaughterhouse is where animals are killed so they can be used for meat. Upton Sinclair’s 1906 novel The Jungle exposes the unsafe working conditions of a slaughterhouse in Chicago. Good times. Not. In order for people to eat meat, animals have to be slaughtered, or killed, and the place where this happens on a large scale is a slaughterhouse. Sometimes it's also called an abattoir. The word stems from a Scandinavian root and is related to the Old Norseslatr, "a butchering." The word slaughterhouse can also refer to a violent situation. In Kurt Vonnegut's novel "Slaughterhouse Five," war prisoners are housed in an abandoned slaughterhouse, which is also a metaphor for war itself.
Vocabulary lists containing slaughterhouse
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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:
Perhaps we really do live in a “demented slaughterhouse of a world,” as the unhinged newsman Howard Beale says in one of his apocalyptic broadcasts, and have all along.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jun. 29, 2026
They’re not selling it and sending it to a slaughterhouse.
From Slate ● Jun. 11, 2026
The story “After the Haiku Period,” about batty twin sisters who lay siege to a slaughterhouse, reprises the material.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Nov. 14, 2025
The biggest chunk of this is for meat products, which makes sense, considering the biggest issues in meat safety stem from the farm and from the slaughterhouse.
From Salon ● Aug. 15, 2024
Billy stayed in the wagon when it reached the slaughterhouse, sunning himself.
From "Slaughterhouse-Five" by Kurt Vonnegut
Somehow, even if they do, there is a successive chain of Agriculture Department inspectors, including at slaughterhouses and things like that, that are going to notice a gaping wound on an animal.
From Slate ● Jun. 11, 2026
Ranchers supporting brands say feedlots are the last line of defense before slaughterhouses, and must be inspected.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Dec. 24, 2025
"In addition to setting up that 20 kilometre zone, we've increased the amount of testing in the slaughterhouses," Muir said.
From BBC ● Dec. 1, 2025
The pair later found employment in slaughterhouses in Nebraska, where she suffered a severe leg injury from a cutting blade.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jul. 28, 2025
I cringed at the thought of becoming a gravedigger, but it was better than searching for work at Chicago’s sweatshops and slaughterhouses.
From "The City Beautiful" by Aden Polydoros
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.
