holocaust

plural holocausts

1. lifestyleAn offering or sacrifice to a deity that is completely burned to ashes.First known use 13th c.

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   And the ſcribe ſayde vnto hym: well maſter⸝ thou haſt ſayde the trugthe⸝ thatt there ys one God⸝ and that there is none but he. And to love hym with all the herte⸝ and with all the mynde⸝ and with all the ſoule⸝ ãd with all the ſtrẽgthe. And to love a mans nehbour as hym ſilfe⸝ ys a greater thynge then all holocauſtꝭ [holocaustes] and ſacrifiſes.

   1526, [William Tyndale, transl.], The Newe Testamẽt […] (Tyndale Bible), [Worms, Germany: Peter Schöffer], →OCLC, The Gospell off S. Marke xij:[32–33], folio lxiij, verso

   […] Iſaac carried on his back the wood for the ſacrifice; which being an holocauſt or burnt offering to be conſumed unto aſhes, we cannot well conceive the wood a burthen for a boy; but ſuch a one unto Iſaac, as that which it typified was unto Chriſt, that is the wood or croſſe whereon he ſuffered; […]

   1650, Thomas Browne, “Of the Picture of Abraham Sacrificing Isaac”, in Pseudodoxia Epidemica: […], 2nd edition, London: […] A[braham] Miller, for Edw[ard] Dod and Nath[aniel] Ekins, […], →OCLC, 5th book, page 208

   In the firſt part whereof [i.e., of the inner court of the Temple of God mentioned in Revelation 11:1] is the Temple, which conſiſts of the Sanctum, and Sanctum Sanctorum, and in the latter part thereof ſtands the Altar of Holocauſts, which whole ſpace therefore is Thyſiaſterion, or the place of ſacrificing, and was not to be rendred Altar, but the place where the Altar ſtands.

   1680, Henry More, chapter XI, in Apocalypsis Apocalypseos; or The Revelation of St John the Divine Unveiled. […], London: […] J. M. for J[ohn] Martyn, and W. Kettilby, […], →OCLC, page 101

2. alsobroadlyfigurativelylifestyleA complete or large offering or sacrifice.

   Inſnar'd ſhe was in Shechems Treachery, / And, ſilly Mayden, ſuddenly became / An Holocauſt to Luſts unhappy Flame.

   1648, Joseph Beaumont, “Canto XVII. The Mortification. Stanza 100.”, in Psyche: Or Loves Mysterie, […], London: […] John Dawson for George Boddington, […], →OCLC, page 322, column 2

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   Oh! and with what a noble freeness on the contrary will not that good soldier, the worthy Spaniard present himself, who, wreathed with laurels, shall run after triumph to the altar of his august mother (his country), and offer up to her in holocaust, the arms and the banners of the vanquished foe; or else testify his bravery by his blood, and body all over glorious sears.

   1808 August 6, “Spain. Proclamation to the Spanish warriors.”, in The Morning Chronicle, number 12,240, London: […] John Lambert […], →OCLC, page 2, column 3

   Is it because the Grand Seignior [of Turkey] does not recognise the religion of Christ, or because himself and his predecessors have so long enjoyed the privilege of shedding Christian blood at their pleasure? […] Surely the memorable facts of our [Greek] forefathers having created the arts and sciences, and propagated Christianity, furnish no good reason why their descendants should be offered up as holocausts to modern legitimacy!

   1821 August 8, The Morning Chronicle, number 16,319, London: […] D[avid] Robertson, […], →OCLC, page 2, column 3

   Synonyms: hecatomb

3. broadlyComplete destruction by fire; also, the thing so destroyed.

   The hut was a holocaust; men fighting their way out howled and coughed on smoke.

   1966, James Workman, The Mad Emperor, Sydney, N.S.W.: Scripts, →OCLC, page 151

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   So vertue giv'n for loſt, / Depreſt, and overthrown, as ſeem'd, / Like that ſelf-begott'n bird [the phoenix] / In the Arabian woods emboſt, / That no ſecond knows nor third, / And lay e're while a Holocauſt, / From out her aſhie womb now teem'd, / Revives, reflouriſhes, then vigorous moſt / When moſt unactive deem'd, / And though her body die, her fame ſurvives, / A ſecular bird ages of lives.

   1671, John Milton, “Samson Agonistes, […].”, in Paradise Regain’d. A Poem. In IV Books. To which is Added, Samson Agonistes, London: […] J[ohn] M[acock] for John Starkey […], →OCLC, page 98, lines 698–708

   A horrible holocaust occurred near Hollow Rock, in Benton County, about 7 o'clock last night. The residence of William F. Flowers was consumed by fire.

   1889 March 16, “All cremated alive: Horrible holocaust near Hollow Rock, Tenn.”, in The Daily American, volume XIV, number 4,571, Nashville, Tenn.: American Co., →OCLC, page 1, column 1

4. broadlyfigurativelyExtensive destruction of a group of animals or (especially) people; a large-scale massacre or slaughter.

   a nuclear holocaust

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   Three hundred and twelve lives have been sacrificed in seven holocausts, which it would not be accurate to denominate "accidents," in the Lancashire coal fields, since November, 1868. […] [P]ractices are permitted to prevail in one coal-field which cannot be sanctioned by science, and are not be justified except in one sense, that the comfort of the whole people in the distribution of fuel, and the distribution of wages through manufactures, condone the calamity of the holocaust of three hundred and twelve lives. We refuse to believe that the British people will accept any such condonation for the slaughter of three hundred and odd of their fellow-countrymen.

   1871 October 1, “Northumbrian” [pseudonym], “Human holocausts in mines”, in Reynolds’s Newspaper: A Weekly Journal of Politics, History, Literature, and General Intelligence, number 1,103, London: […] [F]or the proprietors, George W[illiam] M[acArthur] Reynolds, […], and John Dicks, […], by the said John Dicks, […], →OCLC, page 3, column 1

   ANOTHER ARMENIAN HOLOCAUST; Five Villages Burned, Five Thousand Persons Made Homeless, and Anti-Christians Organized [article title]. […] The Daily News will to-morrow publish a dispatch from Kara, stating that fresh outrages have been perpetrated in the Erzinzian district.

   1895 September 10, “Another Armenian holocaust: Five villages burned, five thousand persons made homeless, and anti-Christians organized”, in The New York Times, volume XLIV, number 13,745, New York, N.Y.: The New York Times Company, →ISSN, →OCLC, page 1, column 6

   This trek, brought about by the startling recuperation of Turkey after her defeat in the World War and her subsequent triumph over the Greeks in Anatolia, eventually developed into a regulated Exchange of racial minorities, according to specific terms and under the supervision of the League of Nations. But the initial episodes of the Exchange drama were enacted to the accompaniment of the boom of cannon and the rattle of machine guns and with the settings painted by the flames of the Smyrna holocaust.

   1925 November, Melville Chater, “History’s Greatest Trek: Tragedy Stalks through the Near East as Greece and Turkey Exchange Two Million of Their People”, in Gilbert Grosvenor, editor, National Geographic, volume XLVIII, number 5, Washington, D.C.: National Geographic Society […], →ISSN, →OCLC, page 533, column 1

   [T]he entire Press, more particularly the French press, is worried lest there be some connection between the bloodless holocaust of German Generals and Ambassadors and the persistent reports that [Benito] Mussolini is about to intervene in Spain on the grand scale.

   1938 February 6, “Proteus” [pseudonym], “The changing scene [Help for Franco?]”, in Gershon Agronsky, editor, The Palestine Post, volume XIV, number 3567, Jerusalem: The Palestine Post, →OCLC, page 4, column 4

   None will emerge the victor from this holocaust.

   1953 December 22, Talbot Jennings, Jan Lustig, Noel Langley, Knights of the Round Table

5. broadlyfigurativelyAlternative letter-case form of Holocaust (“the systematic mass murder (democide or genocide) of Jews (and, more broadly, of disabled people, homosexuals, Romanis, Slavs, and others) perpetrated by Nazi Germany shortly before and during World War II”); hence, the state-sponsored mass murder of a particular group of people in society.First known use 20th c.

present singular third person holocausts · participle present holocausting · participle past holocausted · past holocausted

1. alsofigurativelytransitivelifestyleTo sacrifice (chiefly an animal) to be completely burned.

   Dionysus, once the great goat-god, turned into horned and hooved Satan, the scapegoat, who was banished (as the escape-goat) and later sacrificially burned (holocausted).

   1995, Janice Hocker Rushing, “Evolution of ‘The New Frontier’ in Alien and Aliens: Patriarchal Co-optation of the Feminine Archetype”, in Joel W. Martin, Conrad E. Ostwalt Jr., editors, Screening the Sacred: Religion, Myth, and Ideology in Popular American Film, Boulder, Colo.; Oxford, Oxfordshire: Westview Press, →ISBN, part 2 (Mythological Criticism), page 100

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   Such acts muſt needs be his, who did deviſe / By crying Altars down, to ſacrifice / To private malice; where you might have ſeen / His conſcience holocauſted to his ſpleen.

   1647, [John Cleveland], “On I. W. A. B. of York”, in The Character of a London-diurnall: VVith Severall Select Poems. […], [London]: [s.n.], →OCLC, page 50

   In 1767 [Alexander] Pope's rhymed Iliad had been in everybody's hand during forty years. What portion of that period had Doctor [Samuel] Langley devoted to his own blank verse? Did he survive to compare and compete it with [William] Cowper's? Has it been holocausted to Vulcan? or is it slumbering in the Langleian archives?

   1871 April 29, E. L. S., “A Forgotten Homerist”, in Notes and Queries: A Medium of Inter-communication for Literary Men, General Readers, etc., volume VII, number 174 (4th Series), London: […] Spottiswoode & Co. [for] William Greig Smith, →OCLC, page 362, column 1

   Is it any wonder that the ruler of such a place would be worshipped with aversion rather than invocation? Or that the offering to underworld deities was traditionally an offering that was holocausted, completely burnt and given over to the god, as in the worship of the Olympians in their temples above?

   1997, Kathie Carlson, Life’s Daughter/Death’s Bride: Inner Transformations through the Goddess Demeter/Persephone, Boston, Mass.: Shambhala Publications, →ISBN, page 109

2. transitiveTo destroy (something) completely, especially by fire.

   I at once holocausted / My clothes to stamp out the infection—infection.

   1874, “The Charms of Kilkee”, in London Society. An Illustrated Magazine of Light and Amusing Literature for the Hours of Relaxation, volume XXVI, holiday number, London: […] William Clowes and Sons, →OCLC, page 80

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   The meek and candid persecutor, Cardinal [Reginald] Pole, who killed and took possession when [Thomas] Cranmer was holocausted, built the chapel, and became the voucher for the truth of the absurd legend.

   1850, George Townsend, “[Friday, 8 March 1850]”, in Journal of a Tour in Italy, in 1850, with an Account of an Interview with the Pope, at the Vatican, London: Francis & John Rivington, […], →OCLC, page 119

   A "holocaust of humdrum" is a very vile phrase, especially when you do not mean that the humdrum is holocausted, but that it holocausts something or somebody else.

   1887 October 8, “The Church Congress”, in The Saturday Review of Politics, Literature, Science, and Art, volume LXIV, number 1,667, London: […] Spottiswoode and Co., →OCLC, page 475, column 1

   Sulla once said, before [Julius] Cæsar had made much of a showing, that some day this young man would be the ruin of the aristocracy, and twenty years afterward, when Cæsar sacked, assassinated and holocausted a whole theological seminary for saying "eyether" and "nyether," the old settlers recalled what Sulla had said.

   1888, Bill Nye, “Julius Caesar in Town”, in Bill Nye, James Whitcomb Riley, Fun, Wit and Humor (The Pastime Series; 34), Chicago, Ill.: Laird & Lee, published November 1889, →OCLC, page 18

   From the rising to the setting sun, from the West to the East, / Man shows himself as lower than the beast. / Bestial behaviour, in its fiery globe, / Praised to the sky and holocausting the globe.

   1996, Martin Sorrell, “Strangling Gooseberries: Translating Obaldia”, in Jane Taylor, Edith McMorran, Guy Leclerq, editors, Translation Here and There, Now and Then, Exeter, Devon: Elm Bank Publications, published 2001, →ISBN, page 87

   The first fear realized was fire breaking out and holocausting all the parched mountainsides, along with the treasured homes thereon, smoke sooting up the air for miles around; […]

   2017 May 18, Melody Ortenburger Suppes, chapter 22, in Banana Bubblegum: The Second Herman Grabfelder Mystery, [Bloomington, Ind.]: Xlibris, →ISBN

3. transitiveTo subject (a group of people) to a holocaust (mass annihilation); to destroy en masse.

   Then like fifty years ago the Cardassians invaded Bajor and enslaved the people and basically holocausted them.

   2017 September, “Season Five [Bajoran]”, in Zachary Auburn, editor, A Field Guide to the Aliens of Star Trek: The Next Generation: An Unauthorized Parody, [Los Angeles, Calif.]: The Devastator, →ISBN, page 136

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   Over the centuries, we [Jews] were expelled, pogromed, crusaded, inquisitioned, jihaded, and holocausted out of countries that we helped to make great.

   1991, Alan M[orton] Dershowitz, “Introduction”, in Chutzpah (A Touchstone Book), New York, N.Y.: Simon & Schuster, →ISBN, page 8

   Some of these unshared poems are quite lengthy, about 90 lines each, and they work off the historical fact that Isaac was indeed holocausted, not once, but many times. And as a result, much of Europe and Islam are now happily free of Jews.

   2007, “The Un/Binding and Sacrificing of Isaac: Isaac, Judaism, Israel, Some Poems, and My Life”, in Mishael M. Caspi, John T. Greene, editors, Unbinding the Binding of Isaac, Lanham, Md.; Plymouth, Devon: University Press of America, →ISBN, page 129

   I remember a front page photo in the Toronto Star of a bulldozer ready to push bodies into a mass grave, however, when I found the article in reference, the version that is available only shows the pile of dead and mentions the bulldozer; it does not show it. The article explained that it was because the Israeli curfew did not allow officials to properly bury the dead. The message, however, propagated through the photo and bulldozer reference is: Israel is "Holocausting" the Palestinians.

   2009 October 29, J. David, “The Propaganda Campaign of Lies against Israel that began in the Fall of 2000”, in The Jews, Nationalism, and the Universalist Ideal, Bloomington, Ind.: iUniverse, →ISBN, page 140

plural Holocausts

1. historicaluncountableusuallystrictlyThe systematic mass murder (genocide) of an estimated six million European Jews perpetrated by Nazi Germany during World War II.

   Among Soloway’s congregants injured in the attack was Barbara Steinmetz, an 88-year-old Holocaust survivor who has become one of the most poignant symbols of the attack.

   2025 June 5, Grace Gilson, “Boulder’s ‘shocked and traumatized’ Jewish community takes stock of losses and strengths”, in The Times of Israel

   Synonyms: Shoah

2. broadlyhistoricaluncommonuncountableusuallyThe systematic mass murder (democide) perpetrated by Nazi Germany of somewhere between eleven and fourteen million people they considered subhuman, namely six million Jews and from five to eight million others (including Romanis, Slavs, homosexuals, and people with physical and mental disabilities).

   For quotations using this term, see Citations:Holocaust.

present singular third person Holocausts · participle present Holocausting · participle past Holocausted · past Holocausted

1. Alternative letter-case form of holocaust (“to subject to a mass annihilation; to destroy en masse”).