Home Synonyms massacre

Synonyms of massacre in English:

massacre


See US English definition of massacre

See UK English definition of massacre

See Spanish definition of masacrar

noun

1‘a cold-blooded massacre of innocent civilians’

SYNONYMS
slaughter, wholesale slaughter, mass slaughter, wholesale killing, indiscriminate killing
murder, murdering, mass murder, mass homicide, execution, mass execution, destruction, mass destruction, annihilation, extermination, liquidation, decimation, carnage, butchery, bloodbath, bloodletting, pogrom, genocide, ethnic cleansing, holocaust, Shoah, night of the long knives
literary slaying
rare battue, hecatomb

2‘the match was an 8–0 massacre’

SYNONYMS
rout, crushing defeat, overwhelming defeat, defeat, trouncing, annihilation
debacle, fiasco
informal licking, hammering, clobbering, thrashing, pasting, drubbing, hiding, caning, demolition, going-over, pounding
North American informal shellacking

verb

1‘thousands were brutally massacred by the soldiers’

SYNONYMS
slaughter, butcher, murder, kill, annihilate, exterminate, execute, liquidate, eliminate, destroy, decimate, kill off, wipe out, mow down, cut down, cut to pieces, put to the sword, put to death, send to the gas chambers
literary slay

2‘they were absolutely massacred in the final’

SYNONYMS
trounce, defeat utterly, beat hollow, win a resounding victory over, annihilate, drub, rout, give someone a drubbing, crush, overwhelm, bring someone to their knees
informal hammer, clobber, thrash, paste, give someone a pasting, whip, pound, pulverize, crucify, demolish, destroy, wipe the floor with, take to the cleaners, make mincemeat of, murder, flatten, turn inside out, run rings around
British informal stuff, marmalize
North American informal shellac, blow out, cream, skunk
US informal own