sacrifice

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English

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Etymology

From Middle English sacrificen (verb) and sacrifice (noun), from Old French sacrifice, from Latin sacrificium (“sacrifice”), from sacrificō (“make or offer a sacrifice”), from sacer (“sacred, holy”) + faciō (“do, make”).

Pronunciation

  • IPA(key): /ˈsækɹɪfaɪs/, (now rare or poetic) /ˈsækɹɪfaɪz/
  • Audio (US)(file)
  • Hyphenation: sac‧ri‧fice

Verb

sacrifice (third-person singular simple present sacrifices, present participle sacrificing, simple past and past participle sacrificed)

  1. (transitive, intransitive) To offer (something) as a gift to a deity.
  2. (transitive) To give away (something valuable) to get at least a possibility of gaining something else of value (such as self-respect, trust, love, freedom, prosperity), or to avoid an even greater loss.
    Venison has many advantages over meat from factory farms, although it still requires a hunter to sacrifice the life of a deer.
    • 1960 February, R. C. Riley, “The London-Birmingham services - Past, Present and Future”, in Trains Illustrated, page 99:
      To do the job thoroughly sentiment must be ignored and it seems inevitable that the famous Great Hall and the Doric Arch will have to be sacrificed to progress.
    • 1964, Holland-Dozier-Holland (lyrics and music), “Baby Don't You Do It”, performed by Marvin Gaye:
      Don’t you break my heart / ’Cause I sacrifice to make you happy.
    • 2010, BioWare, Mass Effect 2 (Science Fiction), Redwood City: Electronic Arts, →OCLC, PC, scene: Haestrom:
      Tali: The Admiralty Board believed the information here was worth sacrificing all our lives for. I have to believe that they know what's best.
    • “God sacrificed His only begotten Son, so that all people might have eternal life.” (a paraphrase of John 3:16)
    • 1718, Mat[thew] Prior, “Solomon on the Vanity of the World. A Poem in Three Books.”, in Poems on Several Occasions, London: Jacob Tonson , and John Barber , →OCLC, (please specify the page):
      Condemned to sacrifice his childish years / To babbling ignorance, and to empty fears.
    • 1857, George Eliot, Scenes of Clerical Life:
      The Baronet had sacrificed a large sum […] for the sake of […] making this boy his heir.
  3. (transitive) To trade (a value of higher worth) for something of lesser worth in order to gain something else valued more, such as an ally or business relationship, or to avoid an even greater loss; to sell without profit to gain something other than money.
  4. (transitive, chess) To intentionally give up (a piece) in order to improve one’s position on the board.
  5. (transitive, baseball) To advance (a runner on base) by batting the ball so it can be fielded, placing the batter out, but with insufficient time to put the runner out.
  6. (dated, tradesmen's slang) To sell at a price less than the cost or actual value.
  7. To destroy; to kill.
  8. (medicine) To kill a test animal for autopsy.

Synonyms

Derived terms

Translations

The translations below need to be checked and inserted above into the appropriate translation tables. See instructions at Wiktionary:Entry layout § Translations.

Noun

sacrifice (countable and uncountable, plural sacrifices)

  1. The offering of anything to a god; a consecratory rite.
  2. The destruction or surrender of anything for the sake of something else; the devotion of something desirable to something higher, or to a calling deemed more pressing.
    the sacrifice of one's spare time in order to volunteer
    1. (baseball) A play in which the batter is intentionally out so that one or more runners can advance around the bases.
  3. Something sacrificed.
  4. A loss of profit.
  5. (slang, dated) A sale at a price less than the cost or the actual value.

Derived terms

Translations

References

  1. ^ The Chambers Dictionary, 9th Ed., 2003

French

Etymology

Borrowed from Latin sacrificium.

Pronunciation

Noun

sacrifice m (plural sacrifices)

  1. sacrifice

Related terms

Further reading

Latin

Adjective

sacrifice

  1. vocative masculine singular of sacrificus

Romanian

Pronunciation

Verb

sacrifice

  1. third-person singular/plural present subjunctive of sacrifica
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