Other forms: massacres
A massacre is the killing of many helpless people. A massacre of civilians, the massacre took place, commemorate the massacre.
The helplessness is what the word insists on — a battle is not a massacre, and calling something one is a claim about who could fight back. In sport it means a heavy defeat, which is the same image worn light. The Old French word named a slaughterhouse.
1nounmassacreThe killing of many helpless people.
“Soldiers were accused of a massacre in the village, where dozens of civilians were shot.”
massacre is a killing.
Middle French massacre comes from an Old French word for a slaughterhouse or butchery.
Old French
macacre — slaughterhouse, butchery
Middle French
massacre
English, today
massacre
Built from
1580, from Middle French massacre, from Old French macacre (“slaughterhouse, butchery”), usually thought to be deverbal from Old French macecrer, macecler (“to slaughter”), though the noun seems to be attested somewhat earlier. It is also found in Medieval Latin mazacrium (“massacre, slaughter, killing”, also “the head of a newly killed stag”). Further origin disputed:
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA