abattoir

[ ab-uh-twahr, ab-uh-twahr ]

noun

1. a slaughterhouse.

abattoir

/ ˈæbəˌtwɑː /

noun

1. another name for slaughterhouse

Word History and Origins

Origin of abattoir¹

1810–20; < French, equivalent to abatt ( re ) to slaughter ( abate ) + -oir -ory ²

Word History and Origins

Origin of abattoir¹

C19: French, from abattre to fell

Example Sentences

As a survival strategy, I’ve trained myself to look for the artist in the abattoir: the half-buried strain of racial anxiety, the social commentary of the zombie mall, the chill of a Tobin Bell line reading.

From Los Angeles Times

Trump is still sitting on a paper holding worth more than $2 billion, but his outside investors, many of whom are small investors who bought at or near the top, have been been taken to the abattoir.

From Los Angeles Times

The curriculum encourages students to find their own venues in and around Kumasi, be that an abattoir or an auto repair shop, so that their art becomes part of the city.

From New York Times

Industry has predictably squealed like pigs on the way to the abattoir.

From Los Angeles Times

Just as creepy to me was the mural on the Farmer John slaughterhouse in Vernon, a bucolic panorama of happy piglets gamboling with kids and sleeping under shady trees — a gory dissonance to the daily assembly-line killing of thousands of pigs inside the abattoir.

From Los Angeles Times