mass grave

noun

plural mass graves

: a single grave containing the remains of a large number of people or animals

… a mass grave containing the skeletal remains of what are believed to be warriors from the 1st-century Roman Empire.

—Phillip Jenne

… mass graves of civilians executed by soldiers have been found on the city's outskirts.

—Paul Raffaele

The cave is one of the world's most important fossil sites and is essentially a mass grave—researchers have found thousands of teeth and pieces of bones at that bottom of a vertical 50-foot shaft.

—Jelena Maric

Examples of mass grave in a Sentence

Recent Examples on the Web

Their final moments, captured on their bodycams, are now key evidence in the SBU’s investigation into how a shelter built to keep civilians safe became a mass grave. — Clare Sebastian, CNN Money, 10 Nov. 2026

Mackenzie was charged with the murders alongside 28 of his followers, including guards who enforced his fasting directives and gravediggers who helped conceal the mass graves. — ABC News, 6 Nov. 2026

It's believed these smaller groups died together and were buried together in mass graves. — CBS News, 6 Nov. 2026

Police arrested him again in April 2023 and started combing through the forest more systematically and exhuming mass graves. — Jefferson Kahinju Reuters, Arkansas Online, 20 Oct. 2026

Word History

First Known Use

1895, in the meaning defined above