Carnage Meaning
/ˈkɑː.nɪdʒ/Definition, CEFR level C1, pronunciation, examples, and quiz.
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Definition
nounDeath and destruction.
nounThe corpses, gore, etc. that remain after a massacre.
Sentence Examples
Police encountered a scene of unspeakable carnage.
It was a scene of carnage.
CEFR Practice Quiz
The battlefield was covered with the bloody ____ after the fierce battle.
CEFR Practice Quiz (Alternate)
The scene of the accident was a site of terrible ____ and destruction.
Word Origin & History
Borrowed from Middle French carnage, from a Norman or Picard variant Old Northern French) of Old French charnage, from char (“flesh”), or from Vulgar Latin *carnaticum (“slaughter of animals”), itself from Latin carnem, accusative of caro (“flesh”). By surface analysis, Latin carn- + -age.
Literary Quotations & Historical Citations
"Unleash the wolves / Carnage has no rules / Comparison, competition / We'll bury one and all, all"
— 2007, “Wolves”, in Robb Flynn (lyrics), The Blackening, performed by Machine Head, Track 7:
"Carnage consumes all we’ve ever loved / The innocent blistered by the flame / Trial by fire we burn in shame"
— 2019, “The Sea of Tragic Beasts”, performed by Fit for an Autopsy:
"The lads had recently returned from a wild summer on the party island of Ibiza, an increasingly popular hotspot for working-class British youth. But this was not a scene of drunken holiday carnage in tacky discos."
— 2014, Simon Spence, Happy Mondays: Excess All Areas:
"Within three hours we'd drunk the place dry. Miraculously, we all made it back on the bus, but I've never seen a more bacchanalian scene of wanton debauchery than the ride back to the hotel. It was total carnage."
— 2015, Adam Jones, Bomb: My Autobiography:
"Mothers and children trapped in poverty in our inner cities, rusted out factories, scattered like tombstones across the across the landscape of our nation, an education system flush with cash, but which leaves our young and beautiful students deprived of all knowledge, and the crime, and the gangs, and the drugs that have stolen too many lives and robbed our country of so much unrealized potential. This American carnage stops right here and stops right now."
— 2017 January 20, Donald Trump, The Inaugural Address:
Explore More C1 Vocabulary Words
CEFR Practice Quiz
The battlefield was covered with the bloody ____ after the fierce battle.
CEFR Practice Quiz (Alternate)
The scene of the accident was a site of terrible ____ and destruction.