Greetings, loyal minions. Your Maximum Leader decided to share a word with you all he loves.

Abattoir. Clicky here if you need pronounciation help.

An abattoir is a slaughterhouse. The word is derived from the French abattre, which means “to fell.” Of course, in French abattre has lots of different meanings. It could be used one context as to “knock down” a house. In another context it means “to cut down” a tree. When talking about wild animals it means “to shoot” or “to kill.” In the case of a domesticated animal it means “to slaughter.”

Alas, your Maximum Leader’s latin skills are particularly lacking. Thus he cannot give the Latin origin of the French word. Regardless of that, we have the Norman Conquest to thank for this wonderful word, abattoir, in English. In your Maximum Leader’s Oxford abattoir seems to be derived from the Middle English abatten - which is the derivative of abattre.

Now your Maximum Leader is sure that many of his minions are out there scratching their heads and wondering why their Maximum Leader is bringing up this rather obscure word… Your Maximum Leader mentions it here because it came to him today in conversation. He was speaking to an acquaintance about the Smallholder raising a pig for your Maximum Leader. The acquaintance asked if your Maximum Leader did the harvesting of the animal himself. Your Maximum Leader mentioned that he did not but that the Smallholder took the pigs to an abattoir. The person looked at your Maximum Leader as though he was suggesting that the pigs be taken to a beauty parlour of some sort…

Trust your Maximum Leader… As nice as the word sounds, an abattoir is not a nice place.

Carry on.