Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • transitive verb To kill (an animal, for instance) as a religious sacrifice.
  • transitive verb To kill, especially by fire.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • To kill as a sacrificial victim; offer in sacrifice; make a sacrifice of.
  • Synonyms See sacrifice, v.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • transitive verb To sacrifice; to offer in sacrifice; to kill, as a sacrificial victim.
  • transitive verb To destroy by fire.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • verb to kill as a sacrifice
  • verb to destroy, especially by fire

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • verb offer as a sacrifice by killing or by giving up to destruction

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[Latin immolāre, immolāt-, to sacrifice, sprinkle with sacrificial meal : in-, on; see in– + mola, meal, millstone; see melə- in Indo-European roots.]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From Latin immolō ("I sacrifice").

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Examples

Comments

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  • For some reason I always think there should be fire involved with immolation.

    January 21, 2009

  • There can be.

    January 21, 2009

  • Maybe because one usually hears the term as "self-immolation" in reference to people who burn themselves...? (Well, that's what I think of, anyway.)

    January 21, 2009

  • Yep.

    January 21, 2009

  • Spock used this word in an episode of "Star Trek."

    September 2, 2012