MASSACRE

Massacre

A massacre is an incident where some group is killed by another, and the perpetrating party are perceived to be in total control of force while the victimized party is perceived to be helpless and/or innocent with regard to any legitimate offense. There is no clear-cut definition for when killings are referred to as massacres or not, rather, this choice is a result of an individual or collective assessment, depending e.g. on how the circumstances of the killing align with given ideas of acceptable use of force and on the desired status of an event in collective memory.

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massacre

Noun

  1. The intentional killing of a considerable number of human beings, under circumstances of atrocity or cruelty, or contrary to the norms of civilized people.
    the massacre on St. Bartholomew's Day
    St. Valentine's Day massacre
    Amritsar massacre
  2. Murder.

Verb

  1. To kill in considerable numbers where much resistance can not be made; to kill with indiscriminate violence, without necessity, and contrary to the norms of civilized people; to butcher; to slaughter.


The above text is a snippet from Wiktionary: massacre
and as such is available under the Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

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