holocaust

Meanings

1. 1
   noun

   A huge act of destruction and loss of life, especially by war or fire.

   The film imagines life after a nuclear holocaust.

2. 2
   noun

   A large-scale killing of a group of people; a massacre.

   The museum documents the holocaust suffered by millions during the war.

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Simplified etymology

Holocaust is recorded from the Middle English period and comes from Greek holokauston, a sacrificial offering burned completely, formed from holos, “whole,” and kaustos, “burned.” From the 18th century it could also mean a great slaughter or massacre. The Holocaust refers to the Nazi regime’s mass murder of Jews and other persecuted groups between 1941 and 1945. Newspapers used holocaust for the killing of Jews by the Germans as early as 1942, and historians introduced the term during the 1950s.

The noun is derived from Middle English holocaust (“burnt offering”) [and other forms], from Anglo-Norman holocauste, Old French holocauste, olocauste (modern French holocaust), from Late Latin holocaustum, from Ancient Greek ὁλόκαυστον (holókauston), the neuter form of ὁλόκαυστος (holókaustos, “wholly burnt”), from ὅλος (hólos, “entire, whole”) (ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *solh₂- (“whole”)) + καυστός (kaustós, “burnt”) (from καίω (kaíō, “to burn, burn up”); further etymology uncertain, possibly from Proto-Indo-European *keh₂w-). By surface analysis, holo- + -caust. The verb is derive…

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