sacrifice

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be sacrificed on the altar of (something)

To be abandoned in exchange for something the speaker considers inferior. It seems that the curriculum at this school has been sacrificed on the altar of profit. I know you want to help your family, but your happiness shouldn't be sacrificed on the altar of servitude. In the political world, are ethics and values always sacrificed on the altar of power? It sure seems that way to me.

give the ultimate sacrifice

euphemism To die in service to a particular cause. A lot of the boys Grandma grew up with gave the ultimate sacrifice in World War II. Yes, I'm afraid it's true—two first responders from our unit gave the ultimate sacrifice rescuing people from the fire. The police gave the ultimate sacrifice rescuing the girl who'd been kidnapped. He died a hero.

make the supreme sacrifice

euphemism To die in service to a particular cause. A lot of the boys Grandma grew up with made the supreme sacrifice in World War II. Yes, I'm afraid it's true—two first responders from our unit made the supreme sacrifice rescuing people from the fire.

make the ultimate sacrifice

euphemism To die in service to a particular cause. A lot of the boys Grandma grew up with made the ultimate sacrifice in World War II. Yes, I'm afraid it's true—two first responders from our unit made the ultimate sacrifice rescuing people from the fire.

sacrifice (someone or something) for (someone or something else)

1. To give up, relinquish, or surrender someone or something in order to obtain someone or something, benefit someone or something, or achieve some purpose. I had to sacrifice my favorite three baseball cards to get my hands on the ultra-rare Mickey Mantle card Tom was carrying. He sacrificed a lot of opportunities for you, and this is how you repay him? I don't mind sacrificing a weekend for a chance to win a million dollars on TV.

2. To permit harm, death, destruction, or failure to someone or something in order to obtain something or for some purpose. Their government is clearly willing to sacrifice its citizens for this foolish war. Sarah sacrificed a lot of friendships and relationships for her place at the head of the company.

sacrifice (someone or something) to (someone or something else)

1. To make a sacrificial offering of someone or something to some being, deity, or power. The tribe selects someone each year and sacrifices them to the gods. In burning our material possessions, we sacrifice that which binds us to the mortal world to the unknowable forces of eternity.

2. To give up, relinquish, or surrender someone or something in order to do something. He sacrificed a lot of career opportunities to follow his dream of moving to Japan. I sacrificed the best years of my life to raise you kids!

sacrifice (something) on the altar of (something)

To abandon something in exchange for something else (which is stated after "of"). I know you want to help your family, but you can't sacrifice your happiness on the altar of servitude. It seems that the curriculum at this school has been sacrificed on the altar of profit.

supreme sacrifice

euphemism A death that occurs in service to a particular cause. A lot of the boys Grandma grew up with made the supreme sacrifice in World War II. Yes, I'm afraid it's true—two first responders from our unit gave the supreme sacrifice rescuing people from the fire.

ultimate sacrifice

euphemism A death that occurs in service to a particular cause. A lot of the boys Grandma grew up with made the ultimate sacrifice in World War II. Yes, I'm afraid it's true—two first responders from our unit gave the ultimate sacrifice rescuing people from the fire.

sacrifice someone or something for someone or something

to forfeit someone or something for the sake of someone or something. Surely you won't sacrifice your dear wife for a silly twit like Francine! Would you sacrifice your bank account for a chance to go to Europe?

sacrifice someone or something to someone or something

to make an offering of or give up someone or something to someone or some power. The high priest prepared to sacrifice the prisoner to the gods. I sacrificed a lot of money to a fancy lifestyle.

be sacrificed on the altar of something

If someone or something is sacrificed on the altar of a particular belief or activity, they suffer or are harmed because of it. They promised that the interests of farmers wouldn't be sacrificed on the altar of free trade. Let us hope that these children's education will not be sacrificed on the altar of social experimentation. Note: You can also say that someone or something is a sacrifice on the altar of a particular thing. He was just another sacrifice on the altar of celebrity. Note: An altar was a large stone on which animals were killed during the worship of a god or goddess in former times. The killing of an animal in this way was called a sacrifice.

See also: altar, of, on, sacrifice, something

Collins COBUILD Idioms Dictionary, 3rd ed. © HarperCollins Publishers 2012

sacrifice someone or something on the altar of

make someone or something suffer in the interests of someone or something else.

1994 Post (Denver) The cherished goal of a color-blind society…has been sacrificed on the altar of political expediency.

See also: altar, of, on, sacrifice, someone, something

Farlex Partner Idioms Dictionary © Farlex 2017

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References in periodicals archive ?

If, as Bataille claims, the "sacrificer needs the sacrifice to separate himself from the world of things" (Theory 44), then Henry already relegates Banford to a subhuman domain where ethical issues no longer intrude.

D. H. Lawrence's The Fox: a question of species

The similarities of extreme violence, a tacit complicity of the victims with their sacrificers, as well as the multiplicity of victims killed in the same ceremony, suggest an interiorization of violence.

Demystification and sacrificial thinking: violence in Terenci Moix's Mon mascle

In the framework of sacrifice, mutilated body parts transmit special powers to the sacrificer. (7) Like the ancient sacrificer, Giovanni consumes his sister's heart.

The Gift: economies of kinship and sacrificial desire in 'Tis Pity She's a Whore

By himself becoming offering as well as priest, sacrifice as well as sacrificer, Christ participates in every Christian offering as the substance offered: it is the scent of Christ that mingles in the fragrance of the incense rising.

St Ephrem on the scent of salvation

"Sacrifice"--says Girard--"has often been described as an act of mediation between a sacrificer and a 'deity'" (Violence 6).

Tasso and the epic: a Girardian reading

Jesus Christ is both the shepherd and the sheep, the farmer and the wheat, the vineshoot and the wine in the chalice, the sacrifice and the sacrificer. He is the priest and the victim.

The missionary impulse in the early Asian Christian traditions

The rite is reminiscent of the vedic sacrifice, with its parched grain, etc., and, much in the same vein as that sacrifice, it seeks specific gains for the sacrificer. But this sacrifice, it is shortly made clear, is no ordinary one.

Women at the Margins: Gender and Religious Anxieties in Valmiki's Ramayana

However, besides the victim being substituted for the sacrificer (Evans-Pritchard 1956; Hubert and Mauss 1964), cooking and eating the strength-giving sacrificial pig together was also a conspicuous phenomenon in the Amis sacrificial practices (cf.

The process of kinship in the paternal/fraternal house of the Austronesian-speaking Amis of Taiwan

Brian Smith has noted the importance of the sacrifice or yajna, described as a sturdy vehicle--a bird, a cart, a ship, or a chariot--to carry the sacrificer on the difficult and dangerous journey to the yonder world of the gods, where one can replicate the original sacrificial action of the gods.

The problem with karma: a Levinasian critique and Christian-Hindu theological rehabilitation

Expressing something like a general consensus, the French anthropologist Mondher Kilani, for example, argues that with industrial slaughter consumers, producers and regulators conspire in 'the construction of a fictive "hygienic" death, without spilled blood, or victim, or sacrificer: the modern putting to death of animals no longer possesses a sacrificial dimension ' (2000: 79; my translation; emphasis added).

The pertinence of sacrifice--some notes on Larry the Luckiest Lamb

Thus if, as a sacrificer and worshipper, I enter the Capitol or the temple of Serapis, I shall fall from God--just as I should if a spectator in circus or theatre."

A hermaphrodite? Lope de Vega and the controversy of tragicomedy

His burial included a wooden snuff tablet carved with a three-dimensional sacrificer figure with a trophy head in his left hand, a wooden tube carved with a condor figure, and a spoon (Llagostera et al.

Examinando la vida de un individuo de Solcor 3, San Pedro de Atacama: combinando la bioarqueologia y la quimica arqueologica