Holocaust

3 definitions found

From The Collaborative International Dictionary of English v.0.48 [gcide]:

  Holocaust \Hol"o*caust\, n. [L. holocaustum, Gr. ?, neut. of ?,
     ?, burnt whole; "o'los whole + kaysto`s burnt, fr. kai`ein to
     burn (cf. {Caustic}): cf. F. holocauste.]
     1. A burnt sacrifice; an offering, the whole of which was
        consumed by fire, among the Jews and some pagan nations.
        --Milton.


        [1913 Webster]
  
     2. Sacrifice or loss of many lives, as by the burning of a
        theater or a ship.
  
     Note: [An extended use not authorized by careful writers.]
           [1913 Webster]
  
     3. Specifically: The mass killing of millions of Jews by the
        Nazis during the period from 1933 to 1945 in Germany and
        German-occupied lands; usually referred to as {The
        Holocaust}. In Hebrew, the same event is referred to by
        the word {Shoah}.
        [PJC]

From WordNet (r) 2.0 [wn]:

  holocaust
       n 1: an act of great destruction and loss of life
       2: the Nazi program of exterminating Jews under Hitler [syn: {final
          solution}]

From Moby Thesaurus II by Grady Ward, 1.0 [moby-thes]:

  93 Moby Thesaurus words for "holocaust":
     annihilation, bloodbath, blue ruin, breakup, burnt offering,
     butchery, carnage, clawing, collection, conflagration, consumption,
     cruciation, crucifixion, damnation, decimation, depredation,
     desolation, despoilment, despoliation, destruction, devastation,
     disintegration, disorganization, disruption, dissolution,
     drink offering, elimination, eradication, ex voto offering,
     extermination, extinction, final solution, fire, genocide, havoc,
     heave offering, hecatomb, hell, hell upon earth, horror,
     human sacrifice, immolation, incense, infanticide, inferno,
     laceration, lancination, libation, mactation, martyrdom,
     mass destruction, mass murder, massacre, nightmare, oblation,
     offering, offertory, passion, peace offering, perdition,
     persecution, piacular offering, pogrom, purgatory,
     race extermination, race-murder, rack, ravage, ruin, ruination,
     sacramental offering, sacrifice, saturnalia of blood, scapegoat,
     self-immolation, self-sacrifice, shambles, slaughter, spoliation,
     suttee, sutteeism, thank offering, torment, torture, undoing,
     vandalism, votive offering, waste, whole offering,
     wholesale murder, wrack, wrack and ruin, wreck