SAC'RIFICE, verb transitive sac'rifize. [Latin sacrifico; sacer, sacred, and facio, to make.]

1. To offer to God in homage or worship, by killing and consuming, as victims on an altar; to immolate, either as an atonement for sin, or to procure favor, or to express thankfulness; as, to sacrifice an ox or a lamb. 2 Samuel 6:13.

2. To destroy, surrender or suffer to be lost for the sake of obtaining something; as, to sacrifice the peace of the church to a little vain curiosity. We should never sacrifice health to pleasure, nor integrity to fame.

3. To devote with loss.

Condemn'd to sacrifice his childish years to babbling ignorance and to empty fears.

4. To destroy; to kill.

SAC'RIFICE, verb intransitive To make offerings to God by the slaughter and burning of victims, or of some part of them. Exodus 3:18.

SAC'RIFICE, noun [Latin sacrificium.]

1. An offering made to God by killing and burning some animal upon an altar, as an acknowledgment of his power and providence, or to make atonement for sin, appease his wrath or conciliate his favor, or to express thankfulness for his benefits. Sacrifices have been common to most nations, and have been offered to false gods, as well as by the Israelites to Jehovah. A sacrifice differs from an oblation; the latter being an offering of a thing entire or without change, as tithes or first fruits; whereas sacrifice implies a destruction or killing, as of a beast. Sacrifices are expiatory, impetratory, and eucharistical; that is, atoning for sin, seeking favor, or expressing thanks.

Human sacrifices, the killing and offering of human beings to deities, have been practiced by some barbarous nations.

2. The thing offered to God, or immolated by an act of religion.

My life if thou preserv'st, my life thy sacrifice shall be.

3. Destruction, surrender or loss made or incurred for gaining some object, or for obliging another; as the sacrifice of interest to pleasure, or of pleasure to interest.

4. Any thing destroyed.