slaty (slat i)

[ er, + hus, house), D. slag thu is, MLG. slachte hus, as E. slaught + house.] A house or place where animals are butchered for the market; an abattoir; hence, figuratively, the scene of a ma acre; the scene of any great destruction of human life. Not those [men] whose malice goes beyond their power, and want only enough of that to make the whole World a Slaughter - house . Stilling fleet , Sermons, I. v. With regard to the Spanish inquisition, it mattered little whether the slaughter - house were called Spanish or Flemish, or simply the Blood Council. Motley, Dutch Republic, III. 16. Slaughter-house cases, three cases in the United States Supreme Court, 1873 (16 Wall., 36), so called because sustaining the validity of a statute of Louisiana creating a monopoly in the slaughtering busine in a particular district, on the ground that it was a regulation within the police power for protection of health, etc. The decision is important in its bearing upon the fourteenth amendment to the United States Constitution.