sacrifice
n. C / Un. the act of giving up something valuable to get something more important. Parents often make sacrifices for their children's happiness.
n. the act of surrendering a valued thing for the sake of something else regarded as more important or worthy. The term originates in religious contexts but is widely used in secular and abstract senses.
Parents make sacrifices for their children.
Moving to a smaller apartment was a necessary sacrifice to save money for a house.
The treaty required a significant sacrifice of national sovereignty, a point its critics emphasized during the heated parliamentary debates.
Etymology tree Proto-Indo-European *seh₂k- Proto-Indo-European *-rós Proto-Indo-European *sh₂krós Proto-Italic *sakros Old Latin sacros Latin sacerder. Latin sacrum Proto-Indo-European *dʰeh₁-der. Proto-Indo-European *dʰh₁k-yé-ti Proto-Italic *θakjō Proto-Italic *fakjō Latin faciō Proto-Indo-European *-yós Proto-Italic *-ios Old Latin -ios Latin -ius Latin -ium Latin sacrificiumlbor. Old French sacrifisebor. Middle English sacrifice English sacrifice From Middle English sacrifice (“act of offering a life or object to a deity; the life or object so offered”), from Anglo-Norman sacrefiz, and Old French sacrifice, sacrifise (modern French sacrifice), from Latin sacrificium (“something offered to a deity, sacrifice”), from sacrum (“sacrifice, sacrificial rite”) + faciō (“to do, to make”) + -ium (suffix forming abstract nouns). The noun sacrum is the nominalized neuter of the adjective sacer (“devoted to a deity for sacrifice; holy, sacred”), ultimately from Proto-Indo-European seh₂k- (“ceremony, ritual; to make sacred”), and the verb faciō is ultimately from Proto-Indo-European dʰeh₁- (“to do; to place, put”). Related Latin formations include sacrificus (“of or pertaining to sacrifice, sacrificial”) and sacrificō (“to make a sacrifice”). Cognates * Italian sagrifizio * Occitan sacrifici * Portuguese sacrificio * Spanish sacrificio
From Middle English sacrificen (“to offer a sacrifice to a deity”), from sacrifice (see etymology 1) + -en (suffix forming infinitives of verbs).
Uncountable when referring to the general concept. Countable when referring to a specific act of giving something up (e.g., 'a great sacrifice').