Word.ws English Dictionary

slaughtering

slaughtering is the present participle and gerund of slaughter.

Meaning of slaughter

Verb

slaughter (third-person singular simple present slaughters, present participle slaughtering, simple past and past participle slaughtered)

  1. (transitive) To butcher animals, generally for food.
  2. (intransitive, transitive) To massacre people in large numbers.
    • Hurriedly he snatched up others, one or two at a time, until he had slaughtered thirty of Hrothgar's doughtiest earls.1961, Norma Lorre Goodrich, “Beowulf”, in The Medieval Myths, New York: The New American Library, page 21
  3. (transitive) To kill someone or something, especially in a particularly brutal manner.
    • Therefore cheere vp your mindes, prepare to fight,
      He that can take or ſlaughter Tamburlaine,
      Shall rule the Prouince of Albania.c. 1587–1588 (date written), [Christopher Marlowe], Tamburlaine the Great. […] The First Part […], 2nd edition, part 1, London: […] [R. Robinson for] Richard Iones, […], published 1592, →OCLC...

See all 11 meanings of slaughter

Noun

slaughtering (plural slaughterings)

  1. An act of slaughter; a killing.
    • Towards the end of each trial (approximately July), when the Hock had been markedly depleted by mortalities and the successive group slaughterings, the remaining animals were confined to one paddock.1970, New Zealand Journal of Agricultural Research, volume 13, number 1, page 129

Forms of slaughtering

pluralslaughterings

Words formed from slaughtering

Questions about slaughtering

What does slaughtering mean?
Slaughtering means an act of slaughter; a killing.
What is slaughtering the present participle and gerund of?
Slaughtering is the present participle and gerund of slaughter.
What part of speech is slaughtering?
Slaughtering is a noun.
What is the plural of slaughtering?
The plural of slaughtering is slaughterings.

Words near slaughtering in the dictionary

  1. slaughterhall
  2. slaughterhalls
  3. slaughterhouse
  4. slaughterhouses
  5. slaughteries
  6. slaughtering
  7. slaughteringly
  8. slaughterings
  9. slaughterless
  10. slaughterline
  11. slaughterlines

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: slaughtering (page history and authors); slaughter (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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