carnage
English
Etymology
Borrowed from Middle French carnage [1], from a Norman or Picard variant Old Northern French) of Old French charnage, from char (“flesh”), or from Vulgar Latin *carnaticum (“slaughter of animals”), itself from Latin carnem, accusative of caro (“flesh”).
Noun
carnage (usually uncountable, plural carnages)
- Death and destruction.
- The corpses, gore, etc. that remain after a massacre.
- (figuratively, slang) Any chaotic situation.
- 2014, Simon Spence, Happy Mondays: Excess All Areas
- The lads had recently returned from a wild summer on the party island of Ibiza, an increasingly popular hotspot for working-class British youth. But this was not a scene of drunken holiday carnage in tacky discos.
- 2015, Adam Jones, Bomb: My Autobiography
- Within three hours we'd drunk the place dry. Miraculously, we all made it back on the bus, but I've never seen a more bacchanalian scene of wanton debauchery than the ride back to the hotel. It was total carnage.
- 2014, Simon Spence, Happy Mondays: Excess All Areas
Synonyms
Translations
|
|
|
|
References
- “carnage” in Douglas Harper, Online Etymology Dictionary, 2001–2019.
French
Etymology
From Middle French carnage, itself probably from a Norman or Picard (Old Northern French) variant of Old French charnage, itself from char (cf. chair (“flesh”)), or from a Vulgar Latin *carnaticum (“slaughter of animals”), from Latin carō, carnem. Cf. also Old Occitan carnatge, Italian carnaggio.
Pronunciation
- IPA(key): /kaʁ.naʒ/
Audio (file)
Further reading
- “carnage” in le Trésor de la langue française informatisé (The Digitized Treasury of the French Language).
Middle French
Etymology
Probably from a Norman or Picard (Old Northern French) variant of Old French charnage, itself from char (“flesh”), or from a Vulgar Latin *carnaticum (“slaughter of animals”), from Latin carō, carnem.
References
- charnage on Dictionnaire du Moyen Français (1330-1500) (in French)