ˈslaughter-house
[slaughter n.]
1. a. A house or place where animals are killed for food.
| c 1374 in Scriptores Tres (Surtees) App. p. cxli, Primo Lardariam, quæ vocatur Sclauterhus. 1441–2 Durh. Acc. Rolls (Surtees) 79 Pro cust. boum gros. apud le Slauther-house. 1471–2 Ibid. (Surtees) 93 Pro una magna corda pro le Slaughterhous. 1535 in W. H. Turner Select. Rec. Oxford (1880) 133 The bochers..shall have the voyde grounde..to make a sklautter housse. 1593 Shakes. 2 Hen. VI, iv. iii. 6 They fell before thee like Sheepe and Oxen, & thou behaued'st thy selfe, as if thou hadst beene in thine owne Slaughter-house. 1675 Brooks Golden Key Wks. 1867 V. 340 A lamb..goeth as quietly to the shambles or the slaughter-house as if it were going to the fold. 1709 Steele Tatler No. 21 ¶13 The Second is a Butcher's Daughter and sometimes brings a Quarter of Mutton from the Slaughter-house. 1811 Sporting Mag. XXXVII. 86 The butchers men who work in the slaughter-houses. 1860 Emerson Conduct of Life Wks. (Bohn) II. 310 You have just dined, and, however scrupulously the slaughter-house is concealed.., there is complicity. |
| fig. 1819 Scott Ivanhoe xxvi, Permit him to go freely about his task of preparing these Saxon hogs for the slaughter-house. 1894 Drummond Ascent of Man 25 The world has been held up to us as one great..slaughter-house resounding with the cries of a ceaseless agony. |
b. attrib., as
slaughter-house style,
slaughter-house talk.
| 1850 H. Martineau Hist. Peace II. vi. viii. 576 The rise of Young Ireland, with its political ignorance, its slaughter-house talk, and its bullying boasts. 1854 Emerson Lett. & Soc. Aims, Immortality Wks. (Bohn) III. 279 Where there is depravity there is a slaughter-house style of thinking. |
2. transf. a. A place or scene in which persons are killed or slaughtered.
| 1578 T. N. tr. Conq. W. India 103 [They] beganne openly to say Cortes meant to carrie them to the slaughter house. 1597 Middleton Wisdom of Solomon viii. 15 A reign, not blood, An empire, not a slaughter-house of lives. 1646 Trapp Expos. John x. 40 Jerusalem was then as Rome is now, the saints' slaughter house. 1673 Stillingfl. Serm. v. 86 Those whose malice goes beyond their power, and want only enough of that to make the whole World a Slaughter-house. 1790 R. Merry Laurel of Liberty (ed. 2) 24 Yet, haughty France, my verse could never claim, For deeds that suit the slaughter-house of fame. 1814 Scott Ld. of Isles ii. xv, This ancient fortress of my race Shall be..No slaughter-house for shipwreck'd guest. 1868 Tennyson Lucretius 84 The lust of blood That makes a steaming slaughter-house of Rome. |
| fig. 1797 Godwin Enquirer i. iii. 17 It is the great slaughter-house of genius and of mind. 1918 [see cutting-room s.v. cutting vbl. n. 10]. |
b. A house injurious to health.
| 1899 Atlantic Monthly LXXXIII. 769/1 Rear tenements, to the number of nearly 100, have been condemned as ‘slaughter houses’, with good reason. |
† 3. A part of a fortification.
Obs.| 1552 Edw. VI Jrnl. (Roxb.) 439 It was agreed the wall shuld stond, and tow slaughter houses to be made upon to skowre the utter cutiners. Ibid., Another walle within that, with tow other slaughter houses, and a rampere within that again. |
4. slang. a. (See
quot.)
| 1809 Sporting Mag. XXXIII. 73 The houses called by sharpers Slaughter-Houses, are those where persons are uniformly employed by the proprietors to affect to play at hazard for large sums of money. |
b. A shop where goods are bought from small makers at very low prices. Also
attrib.| 1851 Mayhew Lond. Lab. I. 333 This was owing to..the unwillingness of the small master to carry it to another slaughter-house in the rain. 1861 Ibid. III. 233 A special race of employers, known by the significant name of ‘slaughter-house men’. |
c. A cheap brothel.
| 1928 E. Sutton tr. Londres' Road to Buenos Ayres vii. 55 She had got into a slaughter-house at two dollars instead of five. 1962 W. Faulkner Reivers viii. 164 Both of you get to hell back to that slaughterhouse. |