Butchery definitions

Webster's 1828 Dictionary

BUTCH'ERY, n. The business of slaughtering cattle for the table or for market.
1. Murder, especially murder committed with unusual barbarity; great slaughter.
2. The place where animals are killed for market; a shambles, or slaughter-house; also,a place where blood is shed.

WordNet (r) 3.0 (2005)

n
1: a building where animals are butchered [syn: abattoir, butchery, shambles, slaughterhouse]
2: the business of a butcher [syn: butchery, butchering]
3: the savage and excessive killing of many people [syn: slaughter, massacre, mass murder, carnage, butchery]

Merriam Webster's

noun (plural -eries) Date: 14th century 1. chiefly British slaughterhouse 2. the preparation of meat for sale 3. cruel and ruthless slaughter of human beings 4. botch

Oxford Reference Dictionary

n. (pl. -ies) 1 needless or cruel slaughter (of people). 2 the butcher's trade. 3 a slaughterhouse. Etymology: ME f. OF boucherie (as BUTCHER)

Webster's 1913 Dictionary

Butchery Butch"er*y, n. [OE. bocherie shambles, fr. F. boucherie. See Butcher, n.] 1. The business of a butcher. [Obs.] 2. Murder or manslaughter, esp. when committed with unusual barbarity; great or cruel slaughter. --Shak. The perpetration of human butchery. --Prescott. 3. A slaughterhouse; the shambles; a place where blood is shed. [Obs.] Like as an ox is hanged in the butchery. --Fabyan. Syn: Murder; slaughter; carnage. See Massacre.

Collin's Cobuild Dictionary

1. You can refer to the cruel killing of a lot of people as butchery when you want to express your horror and disgust at this. In her view, war is simply a legalised form of butchery. [disapproval] 2. Butchery is the work of cutting up meat and preparing it for sale. ...a carcass hung up for butchery.

Soule's Dictionary of English Synonyms

n. 1. Murder, slaughter, massacre. 2. Great slaughter, wholesale killing, carnage, enormous bloodshed.