holocaust
Language: English
Part of speech: verb
Pronunciation: ipa: /ˈhɒl.ə(ʊ)ˌkɔːst/
ipa: /ˈhɑl.əˌkɔst/
ipa: /ˈhoʊ.lə-/
ipa: /ˈhɑl.əˌkɑst/
ipa: /ˈhoʊ.lə-/
Forms: form: holocausts
form: holocausting
form: holocausted
form: holocausted
Etymology: 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-).
The verb is derived from the noun. As regards verb sense 3 (“to subject (a group of people) to a holocaust”), compare the use of genocide as a verb.
Senses: examples: text: Such acts muſt needs be his, who did deviſe / By crying Altars down, to ſacrifice / To private malice; where you might have ſeen / His conſcience holocauſted to his ſpleen.
ref: 1647, [John Cleveland], “On I. W. A. B. of York”, in The Character of a London-diurnall: VVith Severall Select Poems. […], [London]: [s.n.], →OCLC, page 50:
text: In 1767 [Alexander] Pope's rhymed Iliad had been in everybody's hand during forty years. What portion of that period had Doctor [Samuel] Langley devoted to his own blank verse? Did he survive to compare and compete it with [William] Cowper's? Has it been holocausted to Vulcan? or is it slumbering in the Langleian archives?
ref: 1871 April 29, E. L. S., “A Forgotten Homerist”, in Notes and Queries: A Medium of Inter-communication for Literary Men, General Readers, etc., volume VII, number 174 (4th Series), London: […] Spottiswoode & Co. [for] William Greig Smith, →OCLC, page 362, column 1:
text: Dionysus, once the great goat-god, turned into horned and hooved Satan, the scapegoat, who was banished (as the escape-goat) and later sacrificially burned (holocausted).
ref: 1995, Janice Hocker Rushing, “Evolution of ‘The New Frontier’ in Alien and Aliens: Patriarchal Co-optation of the Feminine Archetype”, in Joel W. Martin, Conrad E. Ostwalt Jr., editors, Screening the Sacred: Religion, Myth, and Ideology in Popular American Film, Boulder, Colo.; Oxford, Oxfordshire: Westview Press, →ISBN, part 2 (Mythological Criticism), page 100:
text: Is it any wonder that the ruler of such a place would be worshipped with aversion rather than invocation? Or that the offering to underworld deities was traditionally an offering that was holocausted, completely burnt and given over to the god, as in the worship of the Olympians in their temples above?
ref: 1997, Kathie Carlson, Life’s Daughter/Death’s Bride: Inner Transformations through the Goddess Demeter/Persephone, Boston, Mass.: Shambhala Publications, →ISBN, page 109:
topics: lifestyle
religion
glosses: To sacrifice (chiefly an animal) to be completely burned.
examples: text: The meek and candid persecutor, Cardinal [Reginald] Pole, who killed and took possession when [Thomas] Cranmer was holocausted, built the chapel, and became the voucher for the truth of the absurd legend.
ref: 1850, George Townsend, “[Friday, 8 March 1850]”, in Journal of a Tour in Italy, in 1850, with an Account of an Interview with the Pope, at the Vatican, London: Francis & John Rivington, […], →OCLC, page 119:
text: I at once holocausted / My clothes to stamp out the infection—infection.
ref: 1874, “The Charms of Kilkee”, in London Society. An Illustrated Magazine of Light and Amusing Literature for the Hours of Relaxation, volume XXVI, holiday number, London: […] William Clowes and Sons, →OCLC, page 80:
text: A "holocaust of humdrum" is a very vile phrase, especially when you do not mean that the humdrum is holocausted, but that it holocausts something or somebody else.
ref: 1887 October 8, “The Church Congress”, in The Saturday Review of Politics, Literature, Science, and Art, volume LXIV, number 1,667, London: […] Spottiswoode and Co., →OCLC, page 475, column 1:
text: Sulla once said, before [Julius] Cæsar had made much of a showing, that some day this young man would be the ruin of the aristocracy, and twenty years afterward, when Cæsar sacked, assassinated and holocausted a whole theological seminary for saying "eyether" and "nyether," the old settlers recalled what Sulla had said.
ref: 1888, Bill Nye, “Julius Caesar in Town”, in Bill Nye, James Whitcomb Riley, Fun, Wit and Humor (The Pastime Series; 34), Chicago, Ill.: Laird & Lee, published November 1889, →OCLC, page 18:
text: From the rising to the setting sun, from the West to the East, / Man shows himself as lower than the beast. / Bestial behaviour, in its fiery globe, / Praised to the sky and holocausting the globe.
ref: 1996, Martin Sorrell, “Strangling Gooseberries: Translating Obaldia”, in Jane Taylor, Edith McMorran, Guy Leclerq, editors, Translation Here and There, Now and Then, Exeter, Devon: Elm Bank Publications, published 2001, →ISBN, page 87:
text: The first fear realized was fire breaking out and holocausting all the parched mountainsides, along with the treasured homes thereon, smoke sooting up the air for miles around; […]
ref: 2017 May 18, Melody Ortenburger Suppes, chapter 22, in Banana Bubblegum: The Second Herman Grabfelder Mystery, [Bloomington, Ind.]: Xlibris, →ISBN:
glosses: To destroy (something) completely, especially by fire.
examples: text: Over the centuries, we [Jews] were expelled, pogromed, crusaded, inquisitioned, jihaded, and holocausted out of countries that we helped to make great.
ref: 1991, Alan M[orton] Dershowitz, “Introduction”, in Chutzpah (A Touchstone Book), New York, N.Y.: Simon & Schuster, →ISBN, page 8:
text: Some of these unshared poems are quite lengthy, about 90 lines each, and they work off the historical fact that Isaac was indeed holocausted, not once, but many times. And as a result, much of Europe and Islam are now happily free of Jews.
ref: 2007, “The Un/Binding and Sacrificing of Isaac: Isaac, Judaism, Israel, Some Poems, and My Life”, in Mishael M. Caspi, John T. Greene, editors, Unbinding the Binding of Isaac, Lanham, Md.; Plymouth, Devon: University Press of America, →ISBN, page 129:
text: I remember a front page photo in the Toronto Star of a bulldozer ready to push bodies into a mass grave, however, when I found the article in reference, the version that is available only shows the pile of dead and mentions the bulldozer; it does not show it. The article explained that it was because the Israeli curfew did not allow officials to properly bury the dead. The message, however, propagated through the photo and bulldozer reference is: Israel is "Holocausting" the Palestinians.
ref: 2009 October 29, J. David, “The Propaganda Campaign of Lies against Israel that began in the Fall of 2000”, in The Jews, Nationalism, and the Universalist Ideal, Bloomington, Ind.: iUniverse, →ISBN, page 140:
text: Then like fifty years ago the Cardassians invaded Bajor and enslaved the people and basically holocausted them.
ref: 2017 September, “Season Five [Bajoran]”, in Zachary Auburn, editor, A Field Guide to the Aliens of Star Trek: The Next Generation: An Unauthorized Parody, [Los Angeles, Calif.]: The Devastator, →ISBN, page 136:
glosses: To subject (a group of people) to a holocaust (mass annihilation); to destroy en masse.