All 3 Uses

massacre
in
Crediting Poetry, by Seamus Heaney
(Auto-generated)

I am neither internee nor informer; An inner émigré, a grown long-haired And thoughtful; a wood-kerne Escaped from the massacre, Taking protective colouring From bole and bark, feeling Every wind that blows; Who, blowing up these sparks For their meagre heat, have missed The once in a lifetime portent, The comet's pulsing rose.†
In spite of devastating and repeated acts of massacre, assassination and extirpation, the huge acts of faith which have marked the new relations between Palestinians and Israelis, Africans and Afrikaners, and the way in which walls have come down in Europe and iron curtains have opened, all this inspires a hope that new possibility can still open up in Ireland as well.†
It knows that the massacre will happen again on the roadside, that the workers in the minibus are going to be lined up and shot down just after quitting time; but it also credits as a reality the squeeze of the hand, the actuality of sympathy and protectiveness between living creatures.†
*

Definitions:

(1) (massacre)
crushing defeat or brutal, overwhelming attack — used figuratively in competition and literally for violent killings
(2) (meaning too rare to warrant focus)