slaughterhouse
Americannoun
noun
Other Word 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.
He's written about slaughterhouse workers, the family behind Tyson Foods, the value of a 7-Eleven Slurpee, and the failed supermarket megamerger between Kroger and Albertsons.
From The Wall Street Journal • Feb. 8, 2026
Companies are snapping up Vernon properties and upgrading them, adding advanced cooling systems to old office buildings and filling a shuttered slaughterhouse that once housed hogs, with advanced chips.
From Los Angeles Times • Dec. 30, 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
It said that livestock farmers, cheesemakers, slaughterhouse owners and feed suppliers had been informed about the new restrictions.
From BBC • Jul. 30, 2024
When the three fools found the communal kitchen, whose main job was to make lunch for workers in the slaughterhouse, everybody had gone home but one woman who had been waiting for them impatiently.
From "Slaughterhouse-Five" by Kurt Vonnegut
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.
