Holocaust :  n 1: an act of great destruction and loss of life 2: the Nazi program of exterminating Jews under Hitler [syn: Holocaust, final solution]

annihilation, bloodbath, blue ruin, breakup, burnt offering, butchery, carnage, clawing, collection, conflagration, consumption, cruciation, crucifixion, damnation, decimation, depredation, desolation, despoilment, despoliation, destruction, devastation, disintegration, disorganization, disruption, dissolution, drink offering, elimination, eradication, ex voto offering, extermination, extinction, final solution, fire, genocide, havoc, heave offering, hecatomb, hell, hell upon earth, horror, human sacrifice, immolation, incense, infanticide, inferno, laceration, lancination, libation, mactation, martyrdom, mass destruction, mass murder, massacre, nightmare, oblation, offering, offertory, passion, peace offering, perdition, persecution, piacular offering, pogrom, purgatory, race extermination, race-murder, rack, ravage, ruin, ruination, sacramental offering, sacrifice, saturnalia of blood, scapegoat, self-immolation, self-sacrifice, shambles, slaughter, spoliation, suttee, sutteeism, thank offering, torment, torture, undoing, vandalism, votive offering, waste, whole offering, wholesale murder, wrack, wrack and ruin, wreck,

Holocaust : \Hol"o*caust\, n. [L. holocaustum, Gr. ?, neut. of ?, ?, burnt whole; "o'los whole + kaysto`s burnt, fr. kai`ein to burn (cf. Caustic): cf. F. holocauste.] 1. A burnt sacrifice; an offering, the whole of which was consumed by fire, among the Jews and some pagan nations. --Milton. 2. Sacrifice or loss of many lives, as by the burning of a theater or a ship. Note: [An extended use not authorized by careful writers.]