Holocaust

  1. Proper noun.  (historical) The mass murder of Jews and other groups by the Nazi regime during World War II.
  2. Noun.  A sacrifice to a god that is completely burned to ashes.
  3. Noun.  The annihilation or near-annihilation of a group of animals or people, whether by natural or deliberate agency (e.g., “nuclear holocaust”).
  4. Noun.  The state-sponsored mass murder of an ethnic group. In particular (and often with an initial capital) the “Final Solution”, a euphemism used by the Nazis to describe the mass killing of Jews and others either in camps equipped with industrial gassing and crematorium equipment or by more conventional means.

This is an unmodified, but possibly outdated, definition from Wiktionary and used here under the Creative Commons license. Wiktionary is a great resource. If you like it too, please donate to Wikimedia.

This entry was last updated on RefTopia from its source on 3/20/2012.