English
carnage
Carnage comes from Middle French carnage ‘a piece of meat used as bait’.
- Middle Frenchc. 1400–1600carnage‘a piece of meat used as bait’
- Englishearliest quotation 2007carnage
attested reconstructed ? uncertain or disputed deepest recorded ancestor
Earlier history uncertain.
Lineage
- Middle Frenchc. 1400–1600carnage‘a piece of meat used as bait’
- Englishearliest quotation 2007carnage
Earliest quotation: 2007, Wolves: “Unleash the wolves / Carnage has no rules /…”
Equivalent to caro + -age
Linked words
through Proto-Indo-European *(s)ker- ‘to cut off, sever’
short, across, cross, share, screen, score, cancer, shirt, circle, circuit, crucial, curve, circus, circulation, skirt, curb, scrutiny, shrine, crest, cancellation, scare, scorpion, circa, shred, carnival, scar, corona, raffle, circulate, shear, corolla, shrewd, incarceration, crux, cirque, riddance, scorn, circulatory, crepe, corgi, 115 more
through Latin caro ‘flesh’
card, incarnation, carnivorous, carrion, incarnate, carnivore, 14 more
through Latin carnem
Today it means
noun Death and destruction.
Language periods are conventional ranges, not dates for this word.
Etymograph / Middle French carnage / carnage