Kenneth G. Wilson (1923–). The Columbia Guide to Standard American English. 1993.
holocaust, Holocaust (nn.)
The word began with and may still retain a specialized meaning, “a burnt offering,” and from there it has generalized and retained a second meaning, “huge destruction of life, especially but not solely by fire”; this sense is frequently employed with reference to the bombing firestorms that destroyed much of Hamburg and Dresden in World War II, as well as to the fear of nuclear holocaust. Finally, the word specialized again (and in this use is often capitalized and preceded by the in English), meaning “the genocidal killing of millions of Jews by the Nazis during World War II.”
