ethnic cleansing
noun
Simple meaning
The mass expulsion and killing of one ethnic or religious group in an area by another ethnic or religious group in that area.
Pronunciation
Say it like this:
ehthnihklenzingSay the bold part a little louder.
IPA pronunciation (US)
ˈɛθnɪklɛnzɪŋ
This word is pronounced essentially the same in American and British English, so one transcription covers both.
IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) is a standard way of writing speech sounds.
Definition
Everyday modern meanings first, grouped by part of speech.
noun
euphemistic
The mass expulsion and killing of one ethnic or religious group in an area by another ethnic or religious group in that area
euphemistic
The mass expulsion or killing of people belonging to one ethnic group by those of another.
Word Aura™
How this word commonly comes across.
This meaning: The mass expulsion and killing of one ethnic or religious group in an area by another ethnic or religious group in that area
Used this way, ethnic cleansing is a reasonably familiar word that usually carries little praise or criticism of its own. This is a religious use: it carries the weight of tradition and ceremony.
- Emotional tone
- Neutral
- Formality
- Neutral
- Intensity
- Not strongly marked
- How common
- Moderately common
- Connotation
- Euphemistic
- Usage feel
- Neutral and straightforward
Where it naturally appears
- Religion/spirituality
- Historical writing
Word Aura describes common impressions, not a measurement. Tone changes with sentence, speaker, relationship and situation.
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Dictionary data from Wiktionary via the Free Dictionary API. Simple meanings, combinations and word intelligence are built from verified reference data, no AI is used to load this page.