Food & drinkWar, law & rule

slaughter

Norse slátr was butchered meat; English took it as the killing of animals for food and then of people in war — a cousin of native slay and German schlachten. In Iceland the same word names a sausage of offal.

Weakest linkProbable

The road to English

From Old Norse to Icelandic

From Middle English to Scots

500 BCEProto-Germanic

Hops are evenly spaced; labels show the year each form is first attested.

Export “slaughter”

Embed “slaughter”

Save “slaughter”