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''hecatomb'' ▫ᴱᴺ｜Definition｜1st｜20260331180822-00-⌔

hecatomb - Wiktionary, the free dictionary

English

Noun

hecatomb (plural hecatombs)

  • (Ancient Greece, Ancient Rome, historical) A great public sacrifice to the gods, originally of a hundred oxen; also, a great number of animals reserved for such a sacrifice.
    • ✤ O be propitious, powerfull God of Arts,/I sheathe my weapons, and doe breake my darts,/Be then appeas’d, I’le offer to thy shrine,/An Heccatombe, of many spotted kine.1
    • ✤ [B]oth the muſes and the graces are his hard Miſtriſſes, though he daily Invocate them, though he ſacrifize Hecatombs, they ſtil look a ſquint, […]2
    • ✤ But haſte, conſult vve quick ſome prophet here/[…] that vve may learn/By vvhat crime vve have thus incenſed Apollo,/VVhat broken vovv, vvhat hecatomb unpaid/He charges on us, and if ſoothed vvith ſteam/Of lambs and goats unblemiſh’d, he may yet/Be vvon to ſpare us, and avert the plague.3
    • ✤ [I]n th’olden time/Some sacrifices ask’d a single victim,/Great expiations had a hecatomb.4
    • ✤ [I]t is conceivable that if we were ancients some of us might be offering grateful hecatombs by mistake, and proving our honesty in a ruinously expensive manner.5
    • ✤ For the god they speedily stationed the sacred hecatomb all in good order surrounding the well-built altar.6
  • (by extension, religion, historical) A great public sacrifice in other religions; also, a great number of animals or people reserved for such a sacrifice.
    • ✤ The tutelary deity of the Aztecs was the god of war. The great object of their military expeditions was, to gather hecatombs of captives for his altars. The soldier, who fell in battle, was transported at once to the region of ineffable bliss in the bright mansions of the Sun.7
  • (figuratively, literary and poetic) A great number of animals, people, or things that are sacrificed or destroyed; any great sacrifice; also (generally), a large amount.
    • ✤ (large amount): Synonyms: see Thesaurus: lot
    • ✤ O hecatombe! O catastrophe!/From Mydas pompe to Irus beggery!8
    • ✤ [R]egard this Earth/Made multitudinous with thy slaves, whom thou/Requitest for knee-worship, prayer, and praise,/And toil, and hecatombs of broken hearts,/With fear and self-contempt and barren hope.9
    • ✤ There our orb revolved.—/Now stain’d with blood and now with sunbeams gay,/Here heap’d with hecatombs and there with fruits/Of joyous harvest.—10
    • ✤ The tender word and Christian encouragement of an invalid, pitiful patience with his fears and the removal of them, are better than hecatombs of gushing theories, stereotyped borrowed speeches, and the doling of arguments, which are but so many parodies on legitimate Christian Science, aflame with divine Love.11
    • ✤ In[Robert] Conquest’s opinion, the visceral reaction to Nazism entails a verdict that it was morally worse than Stalinism, even if its eventual hecatomb was a less colossal one.12
    • ✤ During the royal hunt, the Shang killed wild beasts with reckless abandon, and consumed hecatombs of domestic animals at a bin banquet or a funeral.13

Verb

hecatomb (third-person singular simple present hecatombs, present participle hecatombing, simple past and past participle hecatombed)

  • (transitive) To provide (someone or something) with a hecatomb.

Etymology

📊 ➺ 📊 ➺ 🖼️ ➺

The noun is a learned borrowing from Latin hecatombē (“great sacrifice of a hundred oxen, hecatomb”), from Ancient Greek ἑκατόμβη (hekatómbē, “great sacrifice of a hundred oxen, hecatomb; any animal sacrifice or large sacrifice”, from ἑκᾰτόν (hekătón, “hundred”) +‎ βοῦς (boûs, “cattle, cow, ox”)).14

The verb is derived from the noun.15

Pronunciation

  • (Received Pronunciation) IPA: /ˈhɛkətuːm/, /-tɒm/
  • Audio (Southern England): 🔊
  • (General American) IPA: /ˈhɛkətoʊm/
  • Hyphenation: he‧ca‧tomb

Printed 2026-06-28.

(echo:: @ ⌗)

Footnotes

  1. 1599, W. Kinsayder or Theriomastix [pseudonyms; John Marston], “Satyre. V. Totum in Toto.”, in The Scourge of Villanie. […], London: […] I[ames] R[oberts], →OCLC; republished as G[eorge] B[agshawe] Harrison, editor, The Scourge of Villanie (The Bodley Head Quartos; 13), London: John Lane, The Bodley Head […]; New York, N.Y.: E[dward] P[ayson] Dutton & Company, 1925, →OCLC, page 58: ↩

  2. a. 1632 (date written), John Donne, “[Characters.] The True Character of a Dunce.”, in Paradoxes, Problemes, Essayes, Characters, […], London: […] T. N. for Humphrey Moseley […], published 1652, →OCLC, page 68: ↩

  3. 1791, Homer, “[The Iliad.] Book I.”, in W[illiam] Cowper, transl., The Iliad and Odyssey of Homer, Translated into Blank Verse, […], volume I, London: […] J[oseph] Johnson, […], →OCLC, pages 5–6, lines 74 and 76–81: ↩

  4. 1821, Lord Byron, Marino Faliero, Doge of Venice. An Historical Tragedy, in Five Acts. […], London: John Murray, […], →OCLC, Act I, scene ii, page 18: ↩

  5. [1879], George Eliot [pseudonym; Mary Ann Evans], “[Impressions of Theophrastus Such.] The Wasp Credited with the Honeycomb.”, in Impressions of Theophrastus Such, Essays and Leaves from a Note-book, Edinburgh; London: William Blackwood and Sons, →OCLC, page 107: ↩

  6. 2007, Homer, “Book 1”, in Rodney Merrill, transl., The Iliad, Ann Arbor, Mich.: University of Michigan Press, →ISBN, page 40, lines 447–448: ↩

  7. 1843, William H[ickling] Prescott, chapter II, in History of the Conquest of Mexico, […], volume I, New York, N.Y.: Harper and Brothers, […], →OCLC, book I (Introduction—View of the Aztec Civilization), page 43: ↩

  8. 1598, John Marston, “The Metamorphosis of Pigmalions Image and Certaine Satyres. Satyre V. Parva magna, magna nulla.”, in J[ames] O[rchard] Halliwell, editor, The Works of John Marston. […] (Library of Old Authors), volume III, London: John Russell Smith, […], published 1856, →OCLC, page 232: ↩

  9. 1818–1819 (date written), Percy Bysshe Shelley, “Prometheus Unbound”, in Prometheus Unbound […], London: C[harles] and J[ames] Ollier […], published 1820, →OCLC, Act I, scene i, page 19: ↩

  10. 1827, [Lydia Sigourney], “A Vision”, in Poems; […], Boston, Mass.: […] S[amuel] G[riswold] Goodrich […], →OCLC, page 142: ↩

  11. 1875, Mary Baker Eddy, “Christian Science Practice”, in Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, Boston, Mass.: The First Church of Christ, Scientist, published 1994, →ISBN, page 367: ↩

  12. 2002 September, Christopher Hitchens, “Martin Amis: Lightness at Midnight: Stalinism without Irony”, in Michael Kelly, editor, The Atlantic Monthly ‎, Washington, D.C.: The Atlantic Monthly Group, →ISSN, →OCLC, archived from the original on 31 May 2023: ↩

  13. 2006, Karen Armstrong, “The Axial Peoples (c. 1600 to 900 BCE)”, in The Great Transformation: The Beginning of Our Religious Traditions, Toronto, Ont.: Vintage Canada, published 2007, →ISBN, page 37: ↩

  14. “hecatomb, n.”, in OED Online ⁠, Oxford: Oxford University Press, July 2023; “hecatomb, n.”, in Lexico, Dictionary.com; Oxford University Press, 2019–2022. ↩

  15. “hecatomb, v.”, in OED Online ⁠, Oxford: Oxford University Press, July 2023. ↩

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