SLAUGHTER

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 Dictionary entry overview: What does slaughter mean? 

• SLAUGHTER (noun)
  The noun SLAUGHTER has 3 senses:

1. the killing of animals (as for food)

2. a sound defeat

3. the savage and excessive killing of many people

  Familiarity information: SLAUGHTER used as a noun is uncommon.

• SLAUGHTER (verb)
  The verb SLAUGHTER has 2 senses:

1. kill (animals) usually for food consumption

2. kill a large number of people indiscriminately

  Familiarity information: SLAUGHTER used as a verb is rare.

 Dictionary entry details 

• SLAUGHTER (noun)

Sense 1

Meaning:

The killing of animals (as for food)

Classified under:

Nouns denoting acts or actions

Hypernyms ("slaughter" is a kind of...):

kill; killing; putting to death (the act of terminating a life)

Holonyms ("slaughter" is a part of...):

butchering; butchery (the business of a butcher)

Derivation:

slaughter (kill (animals) usually for food consumption)

Sense 2

Meaning:

A sound defeat

Classified under:

Nouns denoting natural events

Synonyms:

debacle; drubbing; slaughter; thrashing; trouncing; walloping; whipping

Hypernyms ("slaughter" is a kind of...):

defeat; licking (an unsuccessful ending to a struggle or contest)

Sense 3

Meaning:

The savage and excessive killing of many people

Classified under:

Nouns denoting acts or actions

Synonyms:

butchery; carnage; mass murder; massacre; slaughter

Hypernyms ("slaughter" is a kind of...):

execution; murder; slaying (unlawful premeditated killing of a human being by a human being)

Hyponyms (each of the following is a kind of "slaughter"):

battue; bloodbath; bloodletting; bloodshed (indiscriminate slaughter)

Instance hyponyms:

Alamo (a siege and massacre at a mission in San Antonio in 1836; Mexican forces under Santa Anna besieged and massacred American rebels who were fighting to make Texas independent of Mexico)

Battle of Little Bighorn; Battle of the Little Bighorn; Custer's Last Stand; Little Bighorn (a battle in Montana near the Little Bighorn River between United States cavalry under Custer and several groups of Native Americans (1876); Custer was pursuing Sioux led by Sitting Bull; Custer underestimated the size of the Sioux forces (which were supported by Cheyenne warriors) and was killed along with all his command)

Derivation:

slaughter (kill a large number of people indiscriminately)

slaughterous (accompanied by bloodshed)

• SLAUGHTER (verb)

Present simple: I / you / we / they slaughter    ... he / she / it slaughters   
Past simple: slaughtered   
Past participle: slaughtered   
-ing form: slaughtering   

Sense 1

Meaning:

Kill (animals) usually for food consumption

Classified under:

Verbs of touching, hitting, tying, digging

Synonyms:

butcher; slaughter

Context example:

They slaughtered their only goat to survive the winter

Hypernyms (to "slaughter" is one way to...):

kill (cause to die; put to death, usually intentionally or knowingly)

"Slaughter" entails doing...:

cut (separate with or as if with an instrument)

Troponyms (each of the following is one way to "slaughter"):

chine (cut through the backbone of an animal)

Sentence frames:

Somebody ----s something
Somebody ----s somebody

Derivation:

slaughter (the killing of animals (as for food))

slaughterer (a person who slaughters or dresses meat for market)

Sense 2

Meaning:

Kill a large number of people indiscriminately

Classified under:

Verbs of size, temperature change, intensifying, etc.

Synonyms:

massacre; mow down; slaughter

Context example:

The Hutus massacred the Tutsis in Rwanda

Hypernyms (to "slaughter" is one way to...):

kill (cause to die; put to death, usually intentionally or knowingly)

Sentence frame:

Somebody ----s somebody

Sentence example:

They want to slaughter the prisoners

Derivation:

slaughter (the savage and excessive killing of many people)

 Context examples 

They did not know him for what he was, a lightning-flash of slaughter.

(White Fang, by Jack London)

To slaughter or prepare an animal for market.

(Butcher, NCI Thesaurus)

It was wanton slaughter, and all for woman’s sake.

(The Sea-Wolf, by Jack London)

But he was dead enough, for all that, being both shot and drowned, and was food for fish in the very place where he had designed my slaughter.

(Treasure Island, by Robert Louis Stevenson)

Above, the bodies of the dead and the dying—French, Spanish, and Aragonese—lay thick and thicker, until they covered the whole ground two and three deep in one dreadful tangle of slaughter.

(The White Company, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

The first month four were published, and he promptly received a cheek for four dollars; but when he looked over the magazine, he was appalled at the slaughter.

(Martin Eden, by Jack London)

A. butzleri is found in untreated water and slaughter houses and is an emerging foodborne pathogen.

(Arcobacter butzleri, NCI Thesaurus)

We had little time to watch them, however, for in an instant they had overtaken the fugitives and were making a dire slaughter among them.

(The Lost World, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

Raw meat may become contaminated during slaughter.

(Foodborne Illness, NIH: National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases)

Was it not this Dracula, indeed, who inspired that other of his race who in a later age again and again brought his forces over the great river into Turkey-land; who, when he was beaten back, came again, and again, and again, though he had to come alone from the bloody field where his troops were being slaughtered, since he knew that he alone could ultimately triumph!

(Dracula, by Bram Stoker)