Dictionaries › English

holocaust

Pronunciation: /ˈhɒl.ə(ʊ)ˌkɔːst/

The English word “holocaust” has 7 meanings listed here.

noun

  1. An offering or sacrifice to a deity that is completely burned to ashes.
  2. A complete or large offering or sacrifice.
  3. Complete destruction by fire; also, the thing so destroyed.
  4. Extensive destruction of a group of animals or (especially) people; a large-scale massacre or slaughter.

verb

  1. To sacrifice (chiefly an animal) to be completely burned.
  2. To destroy (something) completely, especially by fire.
  3. To subject (a group of people) to a holocaust (mass annihilation); to destroy en masse.

Etymology

The noun is derived from Middle English holocaust (“burnt offering”) [and other forms], from Anglo-Norman holocauste, Old French holocauste, olocauste (modern French holocaust), from Late Latin holocaustum, from Ancient Greek ὁλόκαυστον (holókauston), the neuter form of ὁλόκαυστος (holókaustos, “wholly burnt”), from ὅλος (hólos, “entire, whole”) (ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *solh₂-…

Keep exploring: in the interactive dictionary every word of a definition is a link. Open “holocaust” there

More English words

About this dictionary

The English dictionary on Glottosphere has 650,529 entries with a page. Browse the English dictionary.

Definitions are from Wiktionary, extracted by Kaikki.org, and are available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 licence.