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slaughter
1[ slaw-ter ]
noun
- the killing or butchering of cattle, sheep, etc., especially for food.
- the brutal or violent killing of a person.
Synonyms: murder
- the killing of great numbers of people or animals indiscriminately; carnage:
the slaughter of war.
verb (used with object)
- to kill or butcher (animals), especially for food.
- to kill in a brutal or violent manner.
- to slay in great numbers; massacre.
- Informal. to defeat thoroughly; trounce:
They slaughtered our team.
Slaughter
2[ slaw-ter ]
noun
- Frank, 1908–2001, U.S. novelist and physician.
slaughter
/ ˈslɔːtə /
noun
- the killing of animals, esp for food
- the savage killing of a person
- the indiscriminate or brutal killing of large numbers of people, as in war; massacre
- informal.a resounding defeat
verb
- to kill (animals), esp for food
- to kill in a brutal manner
- to kill indiscriminately or in large numbers
- informal.to defeat resoundingly
Derived Forms
- ˈslaughterer, noun
- ˈslaughterous, adjective
Other Words From
- slaughter·er noun
- slaughter·ing·ly adverb
- un·slaughtered adjective
Word History and Origins
Origin of slaughter1
Word History and Origins
Origin of slaughter1
Idioms and Phrases
see like a lamb to the slaughter .Synonym Study
Example Sentences
Today, our response to the temporary closing of slaughter plants can be a permanent opening of our dietary habits to actual plants.
Enraged, the meat lobby retaliated by having producers again cease sending animals to slaughter.
After all, Faith says, massive herbivores like these rhinos were slow to breed and it wouldn’t take a “catastrophic slaughter” for humans to make a dent in the population.
If the outcome in certain cases is less reprehensible than outright slaughter, it is only because natural selection only sometimes works to reduce the denominator of the “fitness ratio.”
Plant outbreaks gummed up the meat supply chain, creating a backlog of animals awaiting slaughter.
To most of the world, Bashar al-Assad is a brutal dictator, responsible for the slaughter of 100,000 or more.
Getting people to pay attention to a possible new round of slaughter in the region proved difficult.
Reform first came in 1935 when Lenora Slaughter was hired to re-invent the pageant as its new director.
In her white prom dress, Carrie is like a lamb to the slaughter, the blood besmirching her innocence.
When Dan Honig was getting ready to slaughter a steer for the first time, he expected to feel devastated.
Its record is largely that of battles and sieges, of the brave adventure of discovery and the vexed slaughter of the nations.
The city hell hounds sprang to meet them and the slaughter of inoffensive Europeans began in Darya Gunj.
The farewell and the mourning are finished by the slaughter of dogs, that the dying man may have forerunners in the other world.
This slaughter is accompanied by the tabagie and what follows it—namely, the singing and dancing.
It went hard with him to slaughter the faithful creature, who knew him, and came towards him at the first sound of his voice.
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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.
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