sacrifice
noun · verb
Simple meaning
Giving up something you value for something more important.
Pronunciation
Say it like this:
sakruhfysSay the bold part a little louder.
IPA pronunciation (US)
ˈsækɹəfaɪs
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
religion
A human being or an animal, or a physical object or immaterial thing (see etymology 1, sense 1.3), offered to a deity.
religion
Originally, the killing (and often burning) of a human being or an animal as an offering to a deity; later, also the offering of an object to a deity.
religion
The act of killing (an animal or person) in order to propitiate a deity
figurative
The destruction or surrender of anything for the sake of something else regarded as more urgent or valuable; also, the thing destroyed or surrendered for this purpose.
A loss entailed by giving up or selling something at less than its value
“He had to sell his car at a considerable sacrifice.”
verb
transitiveby extensionfigurative
To destroy or surrender (something) for the sake of something else regarded as more urgent or valuable.
Endure the loss of
transitiveby extensionfigurative
(business, slang, dated) To sell (something) at less than its value, thus incurring a monetary loss.
transitiveby extensionfigurative
(chess) To intentionally allow (a piece) to be captured by the opponent in order to improve one's position in the game.
intransitiveby extensionfigurative
(bridge) To make a bid of a contract which is unlikely to be fulfilled, in the hope that that the player will incur fewer penalty points than the points likely to be gained by opponents in making their contract.
intransitiveby extensionfigurative
(Christianity) To celebrate Holy Communion or Mass.
Word at a Glance
- Difficulty
- B2 · Upper Intermediate
- Frequency
- Moderately Common
- Typical Use
- Neutral / general English
Word Aura™
How this word commonly comes across.
Aura for this meaning
This meaning: A human being or an animal, or a physical object or immaterial thing (see etymology 1, sense 1.3), offered to a deity.
Used this way, sacrifice is a reasonably familiar word that usually carries little praise or criticism of its own. This is a grammar or language-study use: it describes how language works, so it appears in teaching and reference writing.
- Emotional tone
- Neutral
- Formality
- Formal
- Intensity
- Not strongly marked
- How common
- Moderately common
- Connotation
- Matter-of-fact
- Usage feel
- Formal and precise
Where it naturally appears
- Academic writing
- Education/classroom
- Technical/specialist writing
- Religion/spirituality
Usage note
Comfortable in writing and prepared speech; in casual conversation a shorter everyday word usually sounds more natural.
Word Aura describes common impressions, not a measurement. Tone changes with sentence, speaker, relationship and situation.
More ways to use sacrifice
- “He had to sell his car at a considerable sacrifice.”noun
- “The animals were sacrificed after the experiment.”verb
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Common Patterns and Combinations
How this word naturally appears with others.
Word Family
Related forms, grouped by how they connect.
Word family
Words built from the same root.
Used in or connected with a sacrifice.
Compound terms
Established multiword terms.
A sacrifice made by hitting a long fly ball.
Killing or injuring others while annihilating yourself.
The 10th day of Dhu'l-Hijja.
Acting with less concern for yourself than for the success of the joint activity.
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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.