sacrifice

Borrowed from Old French sacrifice, from Latin sacrificium (“sacrifice”), from sacrificō (“make or offer a sacrifice”), from sacer (“sacred, holy”) + faciō (“do, make”). Displaced Old English ansegdniss.

• IPA^(key): /ˈsækɹɪfaɪs/

• Audio (US)

  (file)

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.
   • “Don’t you break my heart / ’Cause I sacrifice to make you happy.” - From the song “Baby Don’t You Do It” by Marvin Gaye
   • “God sacrificed His only begotten Son, so that all people might have eternal life.” (a paraphrase of John 3:16)
   • (Can we date this quote?) Prior

     Condemned to sacrifice his childish years / To babbling ignorance, and to empty fears.

   • (Can we date this quote?) George Eliot

     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.
   • (Can we date this quote?) Ayn Rand, Atlas Shrugged

     If you exchange a penny for a dollar, it is not a sacrifice; if you exchange a dollar for a penny, it is.

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 caught or 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.

   (Can we find and add a quotation of Johnson to this entry?)

• (to offer to a deity): Molochize
• (to sell without profit): sell at a loss

• sacrificial

sacrifice (countable and uncountable, plural sacrifices)

1. The offering of anything to a god; a consecratory rite.
   • (Can we date this quote?) John Milton

     Great pomp, and sacrifice, and praises loud, / To Dagon.

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

3. Something sacrificed.
   • (Can we date this quote?) John Milton

     Moloch, horrid king, besmeared with blood / Of human sacrifice.

4. (baseball) A play in which the batter is intentionally out so that one or more runners can advance around the bases.
5. A loss of profit.
6. (slang, dated) A sale at a price less than the cost or the actual value.

Borrowed from Latin sacrificium.

• IPA^(key): /sa.kʁi.fis/

• Audio

  (file)

• Rhymes: -is

sacrifice m (plural sacrifices)

1. sacrifice

• sacrificiel
• sacrifier

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

sacrifice

1. vocative masculine singular of sacrificus