killing field

[ kil-ing feeld ]

noun

1. a site of indiscriminate and cruel killing of large numbers of people, especially a place of wartime genocide:

   The concentration camps of Germany and the killing fields of Cambodia are graphic displays of the presence of evil in our world.

2. a dangerous place where an excessive number of people have died, as by murder, riots, or drug overdose:

   Some 300 lives are violently ended each year on the killing fields of New York's streets and sidewalks, about half of them pedestrians or cyclists.

Word History and Origins

Origin of killing field¹

First recorded in 1980–85

Example Sentences

He said that under Kemp’s leadership and the state had “gone to hell” and Atlanta was “a killing field.”

From Los Angeles Times

He called Kemp a “bad guy” and said that under his leadership, the state had “gone to hell” and Atlanta had become a “killing field.”

From Los Angeles Times

He was proud of that period in Indochina, Mr. Sui said, where “he went into the killing fields in a jeep” and saw “people buried alive.”

From New York Times

Ratings company Egan-Jones last week threw its support to Peltz and Rasulo, blasting Disney for what it said was “the unnecessary and extremely dangerous entrance ... into the killing fields of the culture wars.”

From Los Angeles Times

“There are too many other schools, too many other everyday places that have become killing fields, battlefields here in America,” Biden said during a speech on gun violence last year.

From Seattle Times