 |
From The Collaborative International Dictionary of English v.0.44 [gcide]:
Holocaust \Hol"o*caust\, noun [L. holocaustum, Gr. ?, neut. of ?, ?, burnt whole; "o'los whole + kaysto's burnt, fr. kai'ein to burn (cf. {Caustic}): cf. F. holocauste.]
1. A burnt sacrifice; an offering, the whole of which was consumed by fire, among the Jews and some pagan nations. --Milton.
2. Sacrifice or loss of many lives, as by the burning of a theater or a ship.
Note: [An extended use not authorized by careful writers.]
3. Specifically: The mass killing of millions of Jews by the Nazis during the period from 1933 to 1945 in Germany and German-occupied lands; usually referred to as {The Holocaust}. In Hebrew, the same event is referred to by the word {Shoah}. [PJC]
From WordNet (r) 2.0 [wn]:
holocaust
noun
1: an act of great destruction and loss of life
2: the Nazi program of exterminating Jews under Hitler [syn: {final solution}]
From Moby Thesaurus II by Grady Ward, 1.0 [moby-thes]:
93 Moby Thesaurus words for "holocaust": annihilation, bloodbath, blue ruin, breakup, burnt offering, butchery, carnage, clawing, collection, conflagration, consumption, cruciation, crucifixion, damnation, decimation, depredation, desolation, despoilment, despoliation, destruction, devastation, disintegration, disorganization, disruption, dissolution, drink offering, elimination, eradication, ex voto offering, extermination, extinction, final solution, fire, genocide, havoc, heave offering, hecatomb, hell, hell upon earth, horror, human sacrifice, immolation, incense, infanticide, inferno, laceration, lancination, libation, mactation, martyrdom, mass destruction, mass murder, massacre, nightmare, oblation, offering, offertory, passion, peace offering, perdition, persecution, piacular offering, pogrom, purgatory, race extermination, race-murder, rack, ravage, ruin, ruination, sacramental offering, sacrifice, saturnalia of blood, scapegoat, self-immolation, self-sacrifice, shambles, slaughter, spoliation, suttee, sutteeism, thank offering, torment, torture, undoing, vandalism, votive offering, waste, whole offering, wholesale murder, wrack, wrack and ruin, wreck
 |
Definitions retrieved from local copies of the freely distributed DICT client/server software and databases. Click here for database copyright information. - KM |