sacrifice

English Online Dictionary. What means sacrifice‎? What does sacrifice mean?

English

Pronunciation

• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /ˈsækɹɪfaɪs/, (archaic or poetic) /-faɪz/
• (General American) IPA^(key): /ˈsækɹəˌfaɪs/
• Hyphenation: sac‧ri‧fice

Etymology 1

From Middle English sacrifice (“act of offering a life or object to a deity; the life or object so offered; (Christianity) act of consecrating the elements in the mass”), from Anglo-Norman sacrefiz, and Old French sacrifice, sacrifise (modern French sacrifice), from Latin sacrificium (“something offered to a deity, sacrifice”), from sacrum (“sacrifice, sacrificial rite”) +‎ faciō (“to do, to make”) +‎ -ium (suffix forming abstract nouns). The noun sacrum is the nominalized neuter of the adjective sacer (“devoted to a deity for sacrifice; holy, sacred”), ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *seh₂k- (“ceremony, ritual; to make sacred”), and the verb faciō is ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *dʰeh₁- (“to do; to place, put”). Related Latin formations include sacrificus (“of or pertaining to sacrifice, sacrificial”) and sacrificō (“to make a sacrifice”).

Noun

sacrifice (countable and uncountable, plural sacrifices)

1. (religion)
   1. Originally, the killing (and often burning) of a human being or an animal as an offering to a deity; later, also the offering of an object to a deity.
   2. A human being or an animal, or a physical object or immaterial thing (see sense 1.3), offered to a deity.
   4. (figurative) The offering of devotion, penitence, prayer, thanksgiving, etc., to a deity.
   5. (Christianity, specifically)
      1. Jesus Christ's voluntary offering of himself to God the Father to be crucified as atonement for the sins of humankind.
      2. (by extension) The rite of Holy Communion or the Mass, regarded as (Protestantism) an offering of thanksgiving to God for Christ's crucifixion, or (Roman Catholicism) a perpetual re-enactment of Christ's sacrificial offering.
2. (figurative)
   1. The destruction or surrender of anything for the sake of something else regarded as more urgent or valuable; also, the thing destroyed or surrendered for this purpose.

      Antonym: nonsacrifice
   2. (baseball) Short for sacrifice bunt or sacrifice hit (“a play in which the batter intentionally hits the ball softly with a hands-spread batting stance at the cost of an out to advance one or more runners”).
   3. (bridge) In full sacrifice bid: a bid of a contract which is unlikely to be fulfilled, that a player makes in the hope that they will incur fewer penalty points than the points likely to be gained by opponents in making their contract.

      Synonym: save

   4. (business, slang, dated) A monetary loss incurred by selling something at less than its value; also, the thing thus sold.
   5. (chess) An act of intentionally allowing one's piece to be captured by the opponent in order to improve one's position in the game.

Derived terms

Translations

Etymology 2

From Middle English sacrificen (“to offer a sacrifice to a deity”), from sacrifice (see etymology 1) + -en (suffix forming infinitives of verbs).

Verb

sacrifice (third-person singular simple present sacrifices, present participle sacrificing, simple past and past participle sacrificed)

1. (transitive)
   1. (religion) To offer (a human being or an animal, or an object) to a deity.

      Synonyms: Molochise, Molochize
   2. (by extension, figurative)
      1. To destroy or kill (a human being or an animal); specifically (sciences), to kill (an animal) for a scientific experiment or test.
      2. To destroy or surrender (something) for the sake of something else regarded as more urgent or valuable.
      3. (baseball) Of a batter: to advance (one or more runners on base) by batting the ball so it can be fielded, placing the batter out but with insufficient time to put the runner(s) out.
      4. (business, slang, dated) To sell (something) at less than its value, thus incurring a monetary loss.
      5. (chess) To intentionally allow (a piece) to be captured by the opponent in order to improve one's position in the game.
2. (intransitive)
   1. (religion) To offer a human being or an animal, or an object, to a deity.
   2. (by extension, figurative)
      1. (baseball) Of a batter: to bat the ball so that it can be fielded, placing the batter out but allowing one or more runners on base to advance.
      2. (bridge) To make a bid of a contract which is unlikely to be fulfilled, in the hope that that the player will incur fewer penalty points than the points likely to be gained by opponents in making their contract.
      3. (Christianity) To celebrate Holy Communion or Mass.

Conjugation

Derived terms

Related terms

Translations

References

Further reading

• sacrifice on Wikipedia.Wikipedia
• sacrifice (bridge) on Wikipedia.Wikipedia
• sacrifice bunt on Wikipedia.Wikipedia
• sacrifice (chess) on Wikipedia.Wikipedia
• sacrifice (disambiguation) on Wikipedia.Wikipedia

French

Etymology

Borrowed from Latin sacrificium.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /sa.kʁi.fis/
• Rhymes: -is

Noun

sacrifice m (plural sacrifices)

1. sacrifice

Related terms

• sacrificiel
• sacrifier

Further reading

• “sacrifice”, in Trésor de la langue française informatisé [Digitized Treasury of the French Language], 2012.

Latin

Adjective

sacrifice

1. vocative masculine singular of sacrificus

Middle English

Alternative forms

• sacrifise, sacrefise, sacrafyse, sacrafyce, sakerfyse, sacryfyce, sacryffyce

Etymology

Borrowed from Old French sacrifise, sacrifice.

Noun

sacrifice (plural sacrifices)

1. a sacrifice:
   1. the act of offering a slain animal or goods to a deity (often by burning)
   2. a sacrificial offering; the victim or thing offered in sacrifice

Descendants

• English: sacrifice

References

• “sacrifīce, n.”, in MED Online, Ann Arbor, Mich.: University of Michigan, 2007.

Romanian

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): [saˈkrifit͡ʃe]

Verb

sacrifice

1. third-person singular/plural present subjunctive of sacrifica