havoc

• havock (obsolete)

From Middle English havok, havyk, from Old French havok in the phrase crier havok (“cry havoc”) a signal to soldiers to seize plunder, from Old French crier (“cry out, shout”) + havot (“pillaging, looting”).

• IPA^(key): /ˈhæv.ək/

• Audio (US)

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havoc (usually uncountable, plural havocs)

1. widespread devastation, destruction
   • Bible, Acts viii. 3

     As for Saul, he made havoc of the church.

   • Addison

     Ye gods, what havoc does ambition make / Among your works!

   • 1918, Edgar Rice Burroughs, The People that Time Forgot‎, HTML edition, The Gutenberg Project, published 2008:

     But when I had come to that part of the city which I judged to have contained the relics I sought I found havoc that had been wrought there even greater than elsewhere.

2. mayhem

The noun havoc is most often used in the set phrase wreak havoc.[1]

• play havoc, raise havoc, wreak havoc, cry havoc, break havoc

havoc (third-person singular simple present havocs, present participle havocking, simple past and past participle havocked)

1. To pillage.
   • 1599, William Shakespeare, Henry V, Act I, Scene II:

     To tear and havoc more than she can eat.

2. To cause havoc.

As with other verbs ending in vowel + -c, The gerund-participle is sometimes spelled havocing, and the preterite and past participle is sometimes spelled havoced; for citations using these spellings, see their respective entries. However, the spellings havocking and havocked are far more common. Compare panic, picnic.

havoc

1. A cry in war as the signal for indiscriminate slaughter.
   • Toone

     Do not cry havoc, where you should but hunt / With modest warrant.

   • Shakespeare

     Cry "havoc", and let slip the dogs of war!