MASSACRE

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 Dictionary entry overview: What does massacre mean? 

• MASSACRE (noun)
  The noun MASSACRE has 1 sense:

1. the savage and excessive killing of many people

  Familiarity information: MASSACRE used as a noun is very rare.

• MASSACRE (verb)
  The verb MASSACRE has 1 sense:

1. kill a large number of people indiscriminately

  Familiarity information: MASSACRE used as a verb is very rare.

 Dictionary entry details 

• MASSACRE (noun)

Sense 1

Meaning:

The savage and excessive killing of many people

Classified under:

Nouns denoting acts or actions

Synonyms:

butchery; carnage; mass murder; massacre; slaughter

Hypernyms ("massacre" 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 "massacre"):

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:

massacre (kill a large number of people indiscriminately)

• MASSACRE (verb)

Present simple: I / you / we / they massacre    ... he / she / it massacres   
Past simple: massacred   
Past participle: massacred   
-ing form: massacring   

Sense 1

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 "massacre" 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 massacre the prisoners

Derivation:

massacre (the savage and excessive killing of many people)

 Context examples 

I read of men concerned in public affairs, governing or massacring their species.

(Frankenstein, by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley)

He was perfectly astonished with the historical account gave him of our affairs during the last century; protesting it was only a heap of conspiracies, rebellions, murders, massacres, revolutions, banishments, the very worst effects that avarice, faction, hypocrisy, perfidiousness, cruelty, rage, madness, hatred, envy, lust, malice, and ambition, could produce.

(Gulliver's Travels into several remote nations of the world, by Jonathan Swift)

Such as the peasant enjoys when his family have been massacred before his eyes, his cottage burnt, his lands laid waste, and he is turned adrift, homeless, penniless, and alone, but free.

(Frankenstein, by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley)