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Webster 1913 Edition


Carnage

Car′nage

,
Noun.
[F.
carnage
, LL.
carnaticum
tribute of animals, flesh of animals, fr. L.
caro
,
carnis
, flesh. See
Carnal
.]
1.
Flesh of slain animals or men.
A miltitude of dogs came to feast on the
carnage
.
Macaulay.
2.
Great destruction of life, as in battle; bloodshed; slaughter; massacre; murder; havoc.
The more fearful
carnage
of the Bloody Circuit.
Macaulay.

Webster 1828 Edition


Carnage

CARNAGE

,
Noun.
1.
Literally, flesh, or heaps of flesh, as in shambles.
2.
Slaughter; great destruction of men; havock; massacre.

Definition 2024


carnage

carnage

English

Noun

carnage (usually uncountable, plural carnages)

  1. Death and destruction.
  2. What remains after a massacre, e.g. the corpses or gore.
  3. (figuratively, slang) Any chaotic situation.
    • 2014, Simon Spence, Happy Mondays: Excess All Areas
      The lads had recently returned from a wild summer on the party island of Ibiza, an increasingly popular hotspot for working-class British youth. But this was not a scene of drunken holiday carnage in tacky discos.
    • 2015, Adam Jones, Bomb: My Autobiography
      Within three hours we'd drunk the place dry. Miraculously, we all made it back on the bus, but I've never seen a more bacchanalian scene of wanton debauchery than the ride back to the hotel. It was total carnage.

Synonyms

Translations

Anagrams


French

Etymology

From Middle French carnage, itself probably from a Norman or Picard (Old Northern French) variant of Old French charnage, itself from char (cf. chair (flesh)), or from a Vulgar Latin *carnaticum (slaughter of animals), from Latin carō, carnem. Cf. also Old Provençal carnatge, Italian carnaggio.

Noun

carnage m (plural carnages)

  1. carnage (all senses)

Middle French

Etymology

Probably from a Norman or Picard (Old Northern French) variant of Old French charnage, itself from char (flesh), or from a Vulgar Latin *carnaticum (slaughter of animals), from Latin carō, carnem.

Noun

carnage m (plural carnages)

  1. a piece of meat used as bait

Descendants