Word.ws English Dictionary

Massacre of the Innocents

Massacre of the Innocents proper noun: the incident in the nativity narrative of the Gospel of Matthew (2:16–18) in which Herod the Great, king of Judea, orders the execution of all male children two years old and under in the vicinity of Bethlehem.

Proper noun

the Massacre of the Innocents

  1. The incident in the nativity narrative of the Gospel of Matthew (2:16–18) in which Herod the Great, king of Judea, orders the execution of all male children two years old and under in the vicinity of Bethlehem.
  2. (UK, humorous) The abandonment of potentially useful measures at the end of a session in the House of Commons, since there is no time to pass them.

Questions about Massacre of the Innocents

What does Massacre of the Innocents mean?
Massacre of the Innocents means the incident in the nativity narrative of the Gospel of Matthew (2:16–18) in which Herod the Great, king of Judea, orders the execution of all male children two years old and under in the vicinity of Bethlehem.
What part of speech is Massacre of the Innocents?
Massacre of the Innocents is a proper noun.

Words near Massacre of the Innocents in the dictionary

  1. massacker
  2. massacr'd
  3. massacre
  4. Massacre Island
  5. Massacre of Saint Bartholomew's Day
  6. Massacre of the Innocents
  7. massacred
  8. massacree
  9. massacreed
  10. massacreeing
  11. massacrees

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: Massacre of the Innocents (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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