immolate
/ˈɪməleɪt
/verb [with object]
Kill or offer as a sacrifice, especially by burning: Chinese kings would immolate vast numbers of animals...
- When her father - who did not accept Shiva, ever - publicly humiliated her beloved at the ritual, Sati immolated herself in the sacrificial fire, desecrating it.
- In the old days, the priests used to immolate their sacrifices at the shrine of Huitzilopochti on top of the temple mayor of Tenochtitlan, but we're more civilised than that.
- Madri immolates herself on her husband's funeral pyre.
Synonyms
sacrifice, offer up, offer as a sacrifice, kill as a sacrifice;
kill, slaughter, burn
Derivatives
immolation
/ noun ...- For the point of Christian martyrdom is not merely the immolation and glorification of individual bodies but the sustenance of a social body, the body of Christ.
- Both see morally mandated personal development as a form of self-destruction, an immolation of one's desires and impulses for the sake of something extrinsic to the self.
- Female infanticide was common, and the practice of sati, the immolation of the wife on her husband's funeral pyre, was encouraged, sometimes even forced.
immolator
/ nounOrigin
Mid 16th century (earlier (late Middle English) as immolation): from Latin immolat- 'sprinkled with sacrificial meal', from the verb immolare, from in- 'upon' + mola 'meal'.