butchery

• POS: Noun
• HYPHEN: butch=er=y

CIDE DICTIONARY

butchery, n. [OE. bocherie shambles, fr. F. boucherie. See Butcher, n.].

•  The business of a butcher.  [1913 Webster]
•  Murder or manslaughter, esp. when committed with unusual barbarity; great or cruel slaughter.  Shak.  [1913 Webster]

  "The perpetration of human butchery."  [1913 Webster]
•  A slaughterhouse; the shambles; a place where blood is shed.  [1913 Webster]

  "Like as an ox is hanged in the butchery."  [1913 Webster]

Syn. -- Murder; slaughter; carnage. See Massacre.

OXFORD DICTIONARY

butchery, n. (pl. -ies)
1 needless or cruel slaughter (of people).
2 the butcher's trade.
3 a slaughterhouse.

Etymology

ME f. OF boucherie (as BUTCHER)

ROGET THESAURUS

butchery

Killing

N killing, homicide, manslaughter, murder, assassination, trucidation, iccusion, effusion of blood, blood, blood shed, gore, slaughter, carnage, butchery, battue, massacre, fusillade, noyade, thuggery, Thuggism, deathblow, finishing stroke, coup de grace, quietus, execution, judicial murder, martyrdom, butcher, slayer, murderer, Cain, assassin, terrorist, cutthroat, garroter, bravo, Thug, Moloch, matador, sabreur, guet-a-pens, gallows, executioner, man-eater, apache, hatchet man, highbinder, regicide, parricide, matricide, fratricide, infanticide, feticide, foeticide, uxoricide, vaticide, suicide, felo de se, hara-kiri, suttee, Juggernath, immolation, auto da fe, holocaust, suffocation, strangulation, garrote, hanging, lapidation, deadly weapon, Aceldama, slaughtering, phthisozoics, sport, sporting, the chase, venery, hunting, coursing, shooting, fishing, pig- sticking, sportsman, huntsman, fisherman, hunter, Nimrod, slaughterhouse, meat packing plant, shambles, abattoir, fatal accident, violent death, casualty, killing, murderous, slaughterous, sanguinary, sanguinolent, blood stained, blood thirsty, homicidal, red handed, bloody, bloody minded, ensanguined, gory, thuggish, mortal, fatal, lethal, dead, deadly, mortiferous, lethiferous, unhealthy internecine, suicidal, sporting, piscatorial, piscatory, in at the death, assassination has never changed the history of the.