Holocaust

(hol'o-kawst.) [From Gr. holokauston, literally, a burning of the whole.] A custom among the ancients of offering the whole body of a victim as an expiatory sacrifice. Among the Jews also the practice obtained, and was intended, under the name of burnt offering, as an acknowledgment that the person making the sacrifice, and all that belonged to him, existed only through the divine bounty. [s. 459]