Massacre

Massacre derives from late 16th century Middle French word macacre meaning "slaughterhouse" or "butchery".

Its primary use remained the context of animal slaughter (in hunting terminology referring to the head of a stag) well into the 18th century.

The French word was loaned into English in the 1580s, specifically in the sense "indiscriminate slaughter of a large number of people".

[10] An early use in the propagandistic portrayal of current events was the "Boston Massacre" of 1770, which was employed to build support for the American Revolution.

By the 1970s, it could also be used purely metaphorically, of events that do not involve deaths, such as the Saturday Night Massacre—the dismissals and resignations of political appointees during Richard Nixon's Watergate scandal.