Word.ws English Dictionary

massacred

massacred is the simple past and past participle of massacre.

Meaning of massacre

Verb

massacre (third-person singular simple present massacres, present participle massacring, simple past and past participle massacred)

  1. (transitive) To kill in considerable numbers where little or no resistance can be made, with indiscriminate violence, without necessity, and contrary to civilized norms. (Often limited to the killing of human beings.)
    • If James should be pleased to massacre them all, as Maximilian had massacred the Theban legion1849–1861, Thomas Babington Macaulay, The History of England from the Accession of James the Second, volume (please specify |volume=I to V), London: Longman, Brown, Green, and Longmans, →OCLC
  2. (figuratively, transitive) To win against (an opponent) very decisively.
  3. (figuratively, transitive) To perform (a work, such as a musical piece or a play) very poorly.
  4. (proscribed, transitive) To kill with great force or brutality.
    • Look how they massacred my boy.1972, The Godfather (film)

See all 7 meanings of massacre

Questions about massacred

What is massacred the simple past and past participle of?
Massacred is the simple past and past participle of massacre.

Words near massacred in the dictionary

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

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: massacred (page history and authors); massacre (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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Cite this entry: “massacred.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/massacred. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.