sacrifice
IPA: sˈækrʌfaɪs
noun
- (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.
- A human being or an animal, or a physical object or immaterial thing (see sense 1.3), offered to a deity.
- (figurative) The offering of devotion, penitence, prayer, thanksgiving, etc., to a deity.
- (Christianity, specifically)
- Jesus Christ's voluntary offering of himself to God the Father to be crucified as atonement for the sins of humankind.
- (by extension) The rite of Holy Communion or the Mass, regarded as (Protestantism) an offering of thanksgiving to God for Christ's crucifixion, or (Roman Catholicism) a perpetual re-enactment of Christ's sacrificial offering.
- (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.
- (bridge) In full sacrifice bid: a bid of a contract which is unlikely to be fulfilled, that a player makes in the hope that they will incur fewer penalty points than the points likely to be gained by opponents in making their contract.
- (business, slang, dated) A monetary loss incurred by selling something at less than its value; also, the thing thus sold.
- (chess) An act of intentionally allowing one's piece to be captured by the opponent in order to improve one's position in the game.
- (baseball) Short for sacrifice bunt or sacrifice hit (“a play in which the batter intentionally hits the ball softly with a hands-spread batting stance at the cost of an out to advance one or more runners”).
verb
- (transitive)
- (religion) To offer (a human being or an animal, or an object) to a deity.
- (by extension, figurative)
- To destroy or kill (a human being or an animal); specifically (sciences), to kill (an animal) for a scientific experiment or test.
- To destroy or surrender (something) for the sake of something else regarded as more urgent or valuable.
- (baseball) Of a batter: to advance (one or more runners on base) by batting the ball so it can be fielded, placing the batter out but with insufficient time to put the runner(s) out.
- (business, slang, dated) To sell (something) at less than its value, thus incurring a monetary loss.
- (chess) To intentionally allow (a piece) to be captured by the opponent in order to improve one's position in the game.
- (intransitive)
- (religion) To offer a human being or an animal, or an object, to a deity.
- (baseball) Of a batter: to bat the ball so that it can be fielded, placing the batter out but allowing one or more runners on base to advance.
- (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.
- (Christianity) To celebrate Holy Communion or Mass.
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Examples of "sacrifice" in Sentences
- In Tingloy, Princess and members of her community have figured out that short-term sacrifice is the path to a future for the next generations.
- There are mixed modes here also, as in the use of the term sacrifice — the word has a temporary allusive reference to a Mosaical figure of speech.
- There are mixed modes here also, as in the use of the term sacrifice, — the word has a temporary allusive reference to a Mosaical figure of speech.
- I _love_ him _more_ than I can say, and I shall do everything in my power to render the sacrifice he has made (for a _sacrifice_ in my opinion it is) as small as I can.
- From this point of view, the term sacrifice can only be used of something that is consumed or destroyed in the service; while the term offering is restricted to things which are not destroyed.
- Thanks to the heroic efforts of enlightened local people who understand that short-term sacrifice is worth the long-term benefit of conserving resources for future generations, many Philippine reefs are now healthier than when I first started working there.
- Should any one seek to bargain with himself to pay the price of loss of self, so that he might gain the higher, fuller life, his sacrifice would be in vain because it would not be selflessness, but selfishness -- there could be no _sacrifice_, were it a bargain.
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