massacre
Definition, pronunciation, etymology, and usage for the English word. Free spelling reference powered by Wiktionary.
Letters
8 characters
Language
English
word origin
Source
Wiktionary
open dictionary
Access
Free
no sign-up needed
Detailed reference entry for the English word "massacre", 8-letters, with pronunciation in International Phonetic Alphabet notation, etymology traced through Germanic and Romance roots where applicable, common misspelling variants catalogued from Hunspell error dictionaries, and usage frequency ranked against the top 100,000 English words in the Wordfreq corpus. PlainSpell covers English, Spanish, Portuguese, French, and German spelling with confusable-pair detection that highlights visually and phonetically similar words. This entry for "massacre" includes synonyms, antonyms, homophones, and cross-language translation pointers sourced from Wiktionary via the kaikki.org extract. Whether you are verifying the correct spelling of "massacre" for academic writing, checking homophone confusion, or exploring etymological origins, this page provides a citation-backed, free reference that requires no sign-up.
massacre is aEnglishnoun. It means: The killing of a considerable number (usually limited to people) where little or no resistance can be made, with indiscriminate violence, without necessity, and/or contrary to civilized norms. Pronounced /ˈmæs.ə.kə(ɹ)/. It ranks #8,169 in English word frequency. Often confused with massage.
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | massacre |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| IPA | /ˈmæs.ə.kə(ɹ)/ |
| Letters | 8 |
| Frequency rank | #8,169 |
| Misspellings tracked | 10 |
| Confusable pairs | 1 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Frequency rank visualization
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
The English entry for massacre is 8 letters long, classified as anoun, and transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet as /ˈmæs.ə.kə(ɹ)/. Corpus data places it at rank #8,169 in overall English word frequency, indicating it appears regularly in written and spoken text.Wiktionary records 3 distinct senses for this headword, so context determines which meaning a reader should apply.
Our Hunspell-derived misspelling index lists 10 documented wrong-spelling variants for massacre, with forms such as "amssacre", "masacre", and "masascre". Each variant represents a distinct typo pattern that appears often enough in corpora to be worth flagging, typically a doubled-consonant error, a silent-letter drop, or a vowel substitution.It also participates in 1 confusable-pair relationship, "massage", where similar look or sound leads writers to substitute one word for another in context.
Etymologically, the entry records: 1580, from Middle French massacre, from Old French macacre, marcacre, macecre, macecle (“slaughterhouse, butchery”), usually thought to be deverbal from Old French macecrer, macecler (“to slaughter”), though the noun seems to be attested somewhat earlier. I… Root origin matters for spelling because borrowed morphemes (Greek, Latin, Old French, Old English) carry their source-language orthographic conventions into modern English, which is why historical etymology is often the cleanest predictor of whether a cluster like "-ough", "-eau", or "-tion" will appear. For readers arriving here from a spelling check, the authoritative guidance is: the correct English form is massacre, spelled M-A-S-S-A-C-R-E, and any other sequence of those letters, regardless of how natural it feels, is a misspelling in standard orthography.
Definition
- 1The killing of a considerable number (usually limited to people) where little or no resistance can be made, with indiscriminate violence, without necessity, and/or contrary to civilized norms.
- 2Murder.
- 3Any overwhelming defeat, as in a game or sport.
Etymology
1580, from Middle French massacre, from Old French macacre, marcacre, macecre, macecle (“slaughterhouse, butchery”), usually thought to be deverbal from Old French macecrer, macecler (“to slaughter”), though the noun seems to be attested somewhat earlier. It is also found in Medieval Latin mazacrium (“massacre, slaughter, killing”, also “the head of a newly killed stag”). Further origin disputed: * From Latin macellum (“butcher shop”). * From Vulgar Latin *matteuculāre, from *matteuca (cf. massue), from Late Latin mattea, mattia, from Latin mateola. * From Middle Low German *matskelen (“to massacre”) (compare German metzeln (“massacre”)), frequentative of matsken, matzgen (“to cut, hew”), from Proto-West Germanic *maitan, from Proto-Germanic *maitaną (“to cut”), from Proto-Indo-European *mei- (“small”). Akin to Old High German meizan (“to cut”) among others. * Note also Arabic مَجْزَرَة (majzara), originally “spot where animals are slaughtered”, now also “massacre”, and in Maghrebi Arabic “slaughterhouse”. Derived from جَزَرَ (jazara, “to cut, slaughter”).
Synonyms
This word in other languages
Common misspellings
Also misspelled as: amssacre,masacre,masascre,massaccre,massacer,massacrre,massarce,masscare,mmassacre,msasacre
Misspelling Pattern Breakdown
Relative frequency of common misspelling types for massacre
Misspelling Variants of "massacre"
Frequency rank: #8,169 in English
Frequently Asked Questions
How do you spell "massacre"?
What does "massacre" mean?
What words are commonly confused with "massacre"?
How do you pronounce "massacre"?
What is the origin of the word "massacre"?
Is PlainSpell free to use?
Nearby English words
Other entries that begin with the letter M in our English index: