carnage

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”).

• (UK) IPA^(key): /ˈkɑː.nɪdʒ/
• (US) IPA^(key): /ˈkɑɹ.nɪdʒ/

• Audio (AU)

  (file)

carnage (usually uncountable, plural carnages)

1. Death and destruction.
2. The corpses, gore, etc. that remain after a massacre.
3. (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.

• insurrectionism
• bloodbath
• massacre

• cranage

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.

• IPA^(key): /kaʁ.naʒ/

• Audio

  (file)

carnage m (plural carnages)

1. carnage (all senses)

• “carnage” in le Trésor de la langue française informatisé (The Digitized Treasury of the French Language).

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.

carnage m (plural carnages)

1. a piece of meat used as bait

• → English: carnage
• French: carnage

• charnage on Dictionnaire du Moyen Français (1330-1500) (in French)