sacrifice

Meanings

1. 1
   noun

   a loss entailed by giving up or selling something at less than its value

   I had to sell my car at a considerable sacrifice.

2. 2
   verb

   kill or destroy

   The animals were sacrificed after the experiment

3. 3
   noun

   Originally, the killing (and often burning) of a human being or an animal as an offering to a deity; later, also the offering of an object to a deity.

   They firſt vvaſh the dead body, paint him, clothe him, and ſo conueigh him to his Dormitorie, vvhich is ſpacious and neat, vvherein they bury his Armolets, Bracelets, Shackles and ſuch Treaſure, concluding their Ceremonies vvith Mimmicke geſtures and eiaculations: vvhich, vvith the Sacrifice of a Goat, vpon his Graue, puts a period to their Burials.

4. 4
   noun

   A human being or an animal, or a physical object or immaterial thing (see etymology 1 sense 1.3), offered to a deity.

   O th'inchaunting vvords of that baſe ſlaue, / Made him to thinke Epeus pine-tree Horſe [i.e., the Trojan Horse] / A ſacrifize t'appeaſe Mineruas vvrath: […]

5. 5
   noun

   The offering of devotion, penitence, prayer, thanksgiving, etc., to a deity.

   Let vs therfore by him [Jesus] offre allwayes vnto God the ſacrifice of prayſe: that is to ſaye, the frute of thoſe lippes which confeſſe his name.

6. 6
   noun

   The rite of Holy Communion or the Mass, regarded as (Protestantism) an offering of thanksgiving to God for Christ's crucifixion, or (Roman Catholicism) a perpetual re-presentation of Christ's sacrificial offering.

   The pretensions of the holy see, the authority of tradition, purgatory, transubstantiation, the sacrifice of the mass, […] were copiously discussed.

7. 7
   noun

   The destruction or surrender of anything for the sake of something else regarded as more urgent or valuable; also, the thing destroyed or surrendered for this purpose.

   the sacrifice of one’s spare time in order to volunteer

8. 8
   noun

   A monetary loss incurred by selling something at less than its value; also, the thing thus sold.

   The Old Year was already looked upon as dead; and its effects were selling cheap like some drowned mariner's aboardship. Its patterns were Last Year's and going at a sacrifice, before its breath was gone. Its treasures were mere dirt, beside the riches of its unborn successor!

Etymology

Etymology tree Proto-Indo-European *seh₂k- Proto-Indo-European *-rós Proto-Indo-European *sh₂krós Proto-Italic *sakros Old Latin sacros Latin sacerder. Latin sacrum Proto-Indo-European *dʰeh₁-der. Proto-Indo-European *dʰh₁k-yé-ti Proto-Italic *θakjō Proto-Italic *fakjō Latin faciō Proto-Indo-European *-yós Proto-Italic *-ios Old Latin -ios Latin -ius Latin -ium Latin sacrificiumlbor. Old French sacrifisebor. Middle English sacrifice English sacrifice From Middle English sacrifice (“act of offering a life or object to a deity; the life or object so offered”), from Anglo-Norman sacrefiz, and Old…