euthanasy

Noun

euthanasia (usually uncountable, plural euthanasias)

1. (usually) The practice of intentionally killing a human being or animal in a humane way, especially in order to end suffering.
   • Euthanasia is the most difficult part of a veterinarian's job.

   Synonyms:

   mercy killing

2. (Nazism, especially, euphemistic, usually) The practice of killing a human being who is considered a liability to society, especially a disabled person.
   • Nevertheless, as Henry Friedlander pointed out years ago, it was not Jews but mentally and physically disabled people who became targets of the first large-scale, systematic killings in Nazi Germany, under the euphemistically labelled “Euthanasia Program.”2016, Doris L. Bergen, “Introduction”, in War and Genocide: A Concise History of the Holocaust, page 3
3. (obsolete, usually) An easy death, or the means to bring about such a death.
   • It would in time, it is to be hoped, effect a quiet euthanasia of the heresies of bigotry and fanaticism which have so long triumphed over human reason, and so generally and deeply afflicted mankind; but this work is to be begun by winnowing the grain from the chaff of the historians of his life.1819 October 31, Thomas Jefferson, Letter To William Short, Monticello