euthanasia

noun euthanasias · euthanasy

1. uncountable, usually The practice of intentionally killing a human being or animal in a humane way, especially in order to end suffering. Euthanasia is the most difficult part of a veterinarian's job.

   Similar: mercy killing

2. Nazism, especially, euphemistic, uncountable, usually The practice of killing a human being who is considered a liability to society, especially a disabled person. Nevertheless, as Henry Friedlander pointed out years ago, it was not Jews but mentally and physically disabled people who became targets of the first large-scale, systematic killings in Nazi Germany, under the euphemistically labelled “Euthanasia Program.”
3. obsolete, uncountable, usually An easy death, or the means to bring about such a death. It would in time, it is to be hoped, effect a quiet euthanasia of the heresies of bigotry and fanaticism which have so long triumphed over human reason, and so generally and deeply afflicted mankind; but this work is to be begun by winnowing the grain from the chaff of the historians of his life.