Massacre (disambiguation)
- This article is about mass killings. For other uses of massacre, see Massacre (disambiguation).
The word massacre has a number of meanings, but most commonly refers to individual events of deliberate and direct mass killing, especially of noncombatant civilians or other innocents that would qualify as war crimes or atrocities. Massacres in this sense do not typically apply to combatants, except figuratively, although the deliberate mass killings of prisoners of war are often considered massacres.
At the same time, the term "massacre" is used more widely to refer to individual, civil, or military mass killings on smaller scales, but having distinct political significance in shaping subsequent events, such as the Boston Massacre. Individual or small group acts of murder may also be described as massacres for sensationalist or sentimental reasons, as in the case of some school shootings. Additionally, the word massacre is often used for political or propaganda purposes, and the choice of whether to label an event a massacre may become a sensitive one; see, for example, the Kent State Massacre.
The word "massacre" is sometimes misused in advertisements and slang in such expressions as "price massacre".