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slaughter

Pronunciation: /ˈslɔːtə/

The English word “slaughter” has 8 meanings listed here.

noun

  1. The killing of animals, generally for food.
  2. A massacre; the killing of a large number of people.
  3. A mass destruction of non-living things.
  4. A rout or decisive defeat.
  5. A group of iguanas.

verb

  1. To butcher animals, generally for food.
  2. To massacre people in large numbers.
  3. To kill someone or something, especially in a particularly brutal manner.

Etymology

From Middle English slaughter, from Old Norse *slahtr, later sláttr, from Proto-Germanic *slahtrą, from Proto-Germanic *slahaną. Equivalent to slay + -ter (as in laughter). Eventually derived from Proto-Indo-European *slak- (“to hit, strike, throw”). Related with Dutch slachten, German schlachten, Finnish lahdata (all “to slaughter”).

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