HOLOCAUST

Pronunciation (US):

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 Dictionary entry overview: What does Holocaust mean? 

• HOLOCAUST (noun)
  The noun HOLOCAUST has 2 senses:

1. an act of mass destruction and loss of life (especially in war or by fire)

2. the mass murder of Jews under the German Nazi regime from 1941 until 1945

  Familiarity information: HOLOCAUST used as a noun is rare.

 Dictionary entry details 

• HOLOCAUST (noun)

Sense 1

Meaning:

An act of mass destruction and loss of life (especially in war or by fire)

Classified under:

Nouns denoting acts or actions

Context example:

a nuclear holocaust

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

destruction; devastation (the termination of something by causing so much damage to it that it cannot be repaired or no longer exists)

Sense 2

Meaning:

The mass murder of Jews under the German Nazi regime from 1941 until 1945

Classified under:

Nouns denoting acts or actions

Synonyms:

final solution; Holocaust

Instance hypernyms:

genocide; race murder; racial extermination (systematic killing of a racial or cultural group)

 Context examples 

It was after we started with Gatsby toward the house that the gardener saw Wilson's body a little way off in the grass, and the holocaust was complete.

(The Great Gatsby, by F. Scott Fitzgerald)