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Glite Dictionary
killing field

killing field

9 8.8
An area where many people were killed during war or violence
  • noun
  • /ˈkɪlɪŋ fiːld/
  • NSFW
translation icon : campo de exterminio
  • The area was known as one of the most notorious killing fields during the genocide, where countless lives were lost.

Right now, penitentiaries are gang run by gangs and they're killing fields.

Examples

  • Many of the victims of these purges were tortured at the S-21 prison and executed at the Cheung Ek killing fields outside of Phnom Penh.

    Academic text (2007)

  • The sieges of Sarajevo and Mostar and the killing fields of Srebrenica will be the building blocks, as Kosovo was for the Serbs.

    Academic text (1997)

  • There just does not need to be any more killing fields.

    Blog text (14)

  • I don't want to harm anybody, but what about the killing fields in Africa?

    Fiction book (1995)

  • Polish Galicia was one of the killing fields of the Eastern Front between 1914 and 1917.

    Academic text (2006)

  • The killing fields of Pol Pot were real in Kampuchea.

    Academic text (2003)

  • The post-independence rioting has a death toll on par with the killing fields of Cambodia.

    Blog text (23)

  • Rwanda is beginning to look like the Cambodian "killing fields" as the bitter tribal struggle between the Tutsi and the Hutu continues. 1994. II

    Academic text (2005)

  • Witnesses described the horrors they found in the killing fields, where many innocent people had been executed.

  • Documentaries often depict the chilling realities of the killing fields, highlighting the atrocities committed during the war.

Synonyms

kill zone
vskilling field
  • Jargon
9 8.4

An area where people are very likely to be killed during an attack

focuses on mass killings in war rather than danger areas or gaming scenarios
killing zone
vskilling field
  • NSFW
1 8.3

An area where many people die, often on a battlefield

emphasizes mass killings like massacre or genocide in war rather than general battlefield deaths

Surface Forms

killing field singular
killing fields plural

Morphology

killing + field

The phrase is directly compositional: 'killing' names the act and 'field' denotes a place, so a B1 learner who knows both words can infer it refers to a place where killings occur (especially mass killings). This locative noun+noun pattern is common cross-linguistically, making the overall meaning transparent to learners with knowledge of the constituents.

Etymology

Killing field comes from the terrible image of open fields where people were killed and buried during mass killings, especially in Cambodia. So, the term now means 'an area where large numbers of people have been killed'.