HOLOCAUST • DICTIONARY ONE.COM • Definition of Holocaust

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/hˈɑləkˌɔst/ Listen

noun

Holocaust n.

A burnt sacrifice; an offering, the whole of which was consumed by fire, among the Jews and some pagan nations.

Sacrifice or loss of many lives, as by the burning of a theater or a ship. Note: (An extended use not authorized by careful writers.)

Specifically: The mass killing of millions of Jews by the Nazis during the period from 1933 to 1945 in Germany and German-occupied lands; usually referred to as The Holocaust. In Hebrew, the same event is referred to by the word Shoah.

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Etymology of 'Holocaust'

Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48

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"Holocaust" Quotes from Famous Books

... this statement sooner, their lives would have been saved; and, as I now write these lines, I fairly shudder at the thought that they may not reach the public and the interested parties before some new holocaust has added to the number of those who have already fallen victims. Others who know the facts, well-meaning editors of leading journals of so-called communistic anarchism, may, from a sense of mistaken party fealty, bear longer the fearful responsibility ...

— Violence and the Labor Movement • Robert Hunter

... Mrs. O'Leary's cow vainly sought to rob her of much of her glory, but through the fiery ordeal of jealousy, envy, and persecution, has our heroine passed, till, from an incipient blaze, she has swelled into the most magnificent holocaust the world has ever known. And it is not alone in her profession that this gifted adustion has amazed and benefited an incinerated public: to her the world is indebted for the many fire-escapes, life-preservers, salamander safes, improved pompier ladders, play-house exits, ...

— Eugene Field, A Study In Heredity And Contradictions - Vol. I • Slason Thompson

... the chances good for a disastrous crown-fire, when the flames would have gone leaping from tree top to tree top, utterly consuming the forest, as the previous fires had destroyed the timber on Old Ironsides. A lucky combination of circumstances alone had prevented a holocaust. ...

— The Young Wireless Operator--As a Fire Patrol - The Story of a Young Wireless Amateur Who Made Good as a Fire Patrol • Lewis E. Theiss

... why? Not of course because they were not Christians, but because the sacrifices in question presented there were to be wholly "burned," "burned without the camp." The entire thought moves within the limits of the typical ceremonial. It deals with the holocaust which even the sacrificer might handle only to commit it to the fire; the victim whose destiny was to be—not eaten by the priestly family but carried outside the camp as wholly devoted ...

— Messages from the Epistle to the Hebrews • Handley C.G. Moule

... of June next year perhaps; and if it should be the consecrated season with you, I don't see how you can keep it. You have no turkeys; you would not desecrate the festival by offering up a withered Chinese bantam, instead of the savoury grand Norfolcian holocaust, that smokes all around my nostrils at this moment from a thousand firesides. Then what puddings have you? Where will you get holly to stick in your churches, or churches to stick your dried tea-leaves (that must be the substitute) in? Come out of ...

— Christmas: Its Origin and Associations - Together with Its Historical Events and Festive Celebrations During Nineteen Centuries • William Francis Dawson

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