Massacre
See also: Massacre (homonymy)
A massacre indicates the Meurtre of a considerable fraction of a Population, in general at the instigation of an authority or a capacity. The massacre is often the fact of an small group armed against disarmed civilians or slightly defended.
The massacre can in particular answer a logic of extermination, a logic of punishment (massacre of reprisals perpetrated by a mode in answer to the Assassinat of the one of its personalities) or a logic of terror (within the framework of a war, to demoralize the enemy). Certain massacres are perpetrated for religious reasons (Massacre of the St. Bartholomew's Day Massacre) or reprisals (Massacre of Oradour-on-Glane). One can also arrange in the category “massacres” civil slaughters holding of the fact various (like the school slaughters).
When massacres are perpetrated intentionally for a total extermination of a group on ethnic criteria, national, religious or racial, one speaks about Génocide.
Expressions
- Play of massacre : play which consists in making fall a stacking with objects while launching projectiles above to the hand. By extension, play in which the objective is to make a maximum of damage with a minimum of efforts.
See too
- List of the massacres
Simple: Massacre