the.com/atrocity
An act of extreme cruelty or violence against people unable to defend themselves.
means An act of extreme cruelty or wickedness, especially violence inflicted on people who couldn't defend themselves.
from From Latin atrox, meaning 'fierce,' 'cruel,' or 'savage' — a word the Romans used for things that were harsh to the point of grimness, built from a root tied to blackness and gloom. It moved through French into English around the 1500s as 'atrocity,' originally just meaning savage cruelty in the abstract, before narrowing to name the specific, documented acts — the massacres, the war crimes — that cruelty leaves behind.
- origin
- from Latin atrox, meaning fierce or cruel
- legal use
- term in international law for war crimes, genocide
- etymology cousin
- shares root with atrocious, not atrophy
- scale required
- implies cruelty beyond ordinary wrongdoing