massacre

«massacre» in Mova's school dictionary: the cruel killing of many people who cannot defend… — its meaning for a pupil, its sense in the lessons and examples, with 1 sentence of Mova's corpora that use it.

part of speech

noun (a massacre, massacres); verb (massacre, massacres, massacred, massacring)

meaning for a pupil

1) A massacre is the cruel killing of many people who cannot defend themselves. tree →

2) To massacre people is to kill many of them in this way. tree →

3) (informal) In sport and games a massacre is a very heavy defeat: «It was a massacre: ten–nil!» tree →

4) (informal) To massacre a song or a language means to perform it very badly. tree →

sense in the lessons

In history lessons and news it is a very serious word for terrible events that people remember and mourn. In everyday sport talk it is an exaggeration. Phrases: «a terrible massacre», «remember the massacre», «it was a massacre».

examples

• The massacre is remembered every year with a minute of silence. tree →
• History books tell of massacres in many wars. tree →
• Soldiers massacred the people of the village. tree →
• Our team lost twelve–nil; it was a massacre. tree →
• (informal) Dad massacred that song at karaoke. tree →
• We learned how survivors told the story of the massacre. tree →
• Memorials help people remember victims of massacres. tree →
• (informal) Sorry, I massacred the French pronunciation. tree →
• It is no part of ours to describe what was a massacre rather than a fight. tree →

note

Say «MASS-uh-ker». Spelling: -cre, like «acre». Past: massacred. Be careful: the joking sport sense should not be used near people who have lost family in real massacres.

In the corpora

• The Nanjing massacre of 1937–1938 is widely documented, and China and Japan still disagree about how to remember the war.

Trees and pragmatics

Every meaning and example of «massacre» parsed by Mova, each sentence with its dependency tree and frames.