Wiktionary:Word of the day/2022/January 27

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Word of the day
for January 27
holocaust n
  1. (religion) An offering or sacrifice to a deity that is completely burned to ashes.
  2. (by extension)
    1. (religion, also figuratively) A complete or large offering or sacrifice.
    2. Complete destruction by fire; also, the thing so destroyed.
    3. (figuratively)
      1. Extensive destruction of a group of animals or (especially) people; a large-scale massacre or slaughter.
      2. Alternative 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.

holocaust v (transitive)

  1. (religion, also figuratively) To sacrifice (chiefly an animal) to be completely burned.
  2. To destroy (something) completely, especially by fire.
  3. To subject (a group of people) to a holocaust (mass annihilation); to destroy en masse.

Today is International Holocaust Remembrance Day, which marks the Holocaust that occurred during World War II – the genocide perpetrated on Jews and other people by the Nazi regime and its collaborators.

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