holocaust
n. countablen. a situation where many people die and everything is destroyed, usually by fire or war. When written with a capital 'H', it refers to the murder of millions of Jews by the Nazis during World War II.
n. destruction or slaughter on a mass scale, especially caused by fire or nuclear war. When capitalised, it specifically denotes the systematic state-sponsored killing of six million Jewish people and others by the Nazi regime.
The world feared a nuclear holocaust during the Cold War.
Historians work to preserve the testimonies of those who survived the Holocaust to ensure such atrocities are never repeated.
The poet used the imagery of a forest fire as a metaphor for a natural holocaust that clears the way for new growth while mourning the total loss of the old ecosystem.
The noun is derived from Middle English holocaust (“burnt offering”) [and other forms], from Anglo-Norman holocauste, Old French holocauste, olocauste (modern French holocaust), from Late Latin holocaustum, from Ancient Greek ὁλόκαυστον (holókauston), the neuter form of ὁλόκαυστος (holókaustos, “wholly burnt”), from ὅλος (hólos, “entire, whole”) (ultimately from Proto-Indo-European solh₂- (“whole”)) + καυστός (kaustós, “burnt”) (from καίω (kaíō, “to burn, burn up”); further etymology uncertain, possibly from Proto-Indo-European keh₂w-). The verb is derived from the noun. As regards verb sense 3 (“to subject (a group of people) to a holocaust”), compare the use of genocide as a verb.
Usually takes the definite article 'the' and is capitalised when referring to the historical event in the 1940s.