carnage
n. uncountablen. the killing of a large number of people, especially in a war or a violent accident. It describes a scene of great destruction and mess.
n. the slaughter of a great number of people, as in battle; butchery or massacre. Often used metaphorically to describe scenes of extreme disorder or failure.
The battlefield was a scene of total carnage.
Emergency services arrived at the highway to find a scene of carnage involving several vehicles and a fallen tree.
Historians often struggle to reconcile the era's artistic achievements with the relentless carnage of its civil wars, which decimated the population and leveled entire cities.
Borrowed from Middle French carnage, from a Norman or Picard variant Old Northern French) of Old French charnage, from char (“flesh”), or from Vulgar Latin *carnaticum (“slaughter of animals”), itself from Latin carnem, accusative of caro (“flesh”).