Nearby Words
noun
1.
a person who suffers from a destructive or injurious action or agency: a victim of an automobile accident.
2.
a person who is deceived or cheated, as by his or her own emotions or ignorance, by the dishonesty of others, or by some impersonal agency: a victim of misplaced confidence; the victim of a swindler; a victim of an optical illusion.
3.
a person or animal sacrificed or regarded as sacrificed: war victims.
4.
a living creature sacrificed in religious rites.
Origin:
1490–1500; < Latin victima sacrificial animal
1490–1500; < Latin victima sacrificial animal
Related forms
vic·tim·hood, noun
vic·tim·less, adjective
non·vic·tim, noun
Dictionary.com Unabridged
Based on the Random House Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2012.
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Based on the Random House Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2012.
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Victims
is always a great word to know.
So is quincunx. Does it mean:
| a scrap or morsel of food left at a meal. |
| an arrangement of five objects, as trees, in a square or rectangle, one at each corner and one in the middle. |
Etymonline
Word Origin & History
victim
late 15c., "living creature killed and offered as a sacrifice to a deity or supernatural power," from L. victima "person or animal killed as a sacrifice." Perhaps distantly connected to O.E. wig "idol," Goth. weihs "holy," Ger. weihen "consecrate" (cf. Weihnachten "Christmas") on notion of "a consecrated
EXPANDanimal." Sense of "person who is hurt, tortured, or killed by another" is first recorded 1650s; meaning "person oppressed by some power or situation" is from 1718. Weaker sense of "person taken advantage of" is recorded from 1781.
COLLAPSE
Online Etymology Dictionary, © 2010 Douglas Harper
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