massacrate

Massacrate is a verb that means to cause the deaths of a large number of people; in effect, to massacre. It is a rarely used, archaic, or literary form in modern English, with the standard verb mass a cre typically preferred in everyday writing. When encountered, massacrate tends to appear in historical texts, poetry, or stylistic prose rather than in contemporary journalism or academic writing.

Etymology and usage notes: the term is formed by adding the suffix -ate to the noun massacre, whose own origin lies with earlier European languages, including Italian and French. In modern English, the more common verb is massacre. Massacrate retains recognition mainly as a historical or stylistic variant, and many dictionaries label it as obsolete or infrequent. Because it can be confused with the more common form, writers who wish to describe large-scale violence usually opt for "massacre" (as a verb) or alternative phrasing such as "kill on a large scale" or "slaughter." When used, massacrate may appear in the present tense as "they massacrate the village" in older texts, with the past tense "massacred."

Examples: In archaic or literary passages, one might find sentences such as "The invaders massacrate the town's inhabitants" or "The records describe how the forces massacrate thousands." In modern prose, it is more typical to say "massacre" as a verb or to use a paraphrase like "carried out a massacre" to avoid unfamiliar terminology.

See also: Massacre, violence, historical terminology, archaic verb forms.