Holocaust vs Exterminate - What's the difference?
holocaust | exterminate |
A sacrifice that is completely burned to ashes.
* 1526 , William Tyndale, trans. Bible , Mark XII:
* 1646 , Sir Thomas Browne, Pseudodoxia Epidemica , III.3:
The annihilation or near-annihilation of a group of animals or people, whether by natural or deliberate agency.
The state-sponsored mass murder of an ethnic group. In particular, the Holocaust (which see ).
An inferno or fire disaster.
To kill all of a population, usually deliberate and especially applied to pests.
(figuratively) To bring a definite end to, finish completely. A rather strong word that implies that what has been ended won't resurface.
As a proper noun holocaust
is (historical|narrowly) the systematic mass murder (genocide) of 6 million jews perpetrated by nazi germany shortly before and during world war ii.As a verb exterminate is
to kill all of a population, usually deliberate and especially applied to pests.holocaust
English
Noun
(en noun)- And to love a mans nehbour as hymsilfe, ys a greater thynge then all holocaustes and sacrifises.
- in the holocaust or burnt-offering of Moses, the gall was cast away: for, as Ben Maimon instructeth, the inwards, whereto the gall adhereth, were taken out with the crop (according unto the law,) which the priest did not burn, but cast unto the east [...].
- nuclear holocaust
- a nuclear holocaust
Usage notes
* Use of the word holocaust to depict Jewish suffering under the Nazis dates back to 1942, according to the OED. By the 1970s, The Holocaust'' was often synonymous with the Jewish exterminations. This use of the term as a synonym for the Jewish exterminations has been criticised because it appears to imply that there was a voluntary religious purpose behind the Nazi actions, which was not the case from either the Nazis' perspective or the victims'. Hence, some people prefer the term ''Shoah'', which means ''destruction . * The word continues to be used in its other senses. For example, part of the action of a BBC radio drama by James Follett in 1981 takes place in “Holocaust City”, which by inference was named because the inhabitants were the only survivors of a global nuclear war. * For more information on the use of the term Holocaust'', see the entry ''Holocaust .See also
* burnt offering * ethnic cleansing * pogromReferences
* Lewis M. Paternoster and Ruth Frager-Stone, Three Dimensions of Vocabulary Growth, second edition (Amsco School Publications, 1998) *Oxford Dictionary: holocaust* * ----
exterminate
English
Verb
(exterminat)- We'll use poison to exterminate the rats.
- Even a mass birching at the public school failed to exterminate truancy.
