butcher's bill
Death toll reckoning
The butcher's bill is the human cost of violence—the count of dead and wounded after a battle, war, or other bloody event.
The phrase evokes a tally of bodies as coldly transactional as a merchant's invoice: The campaign achieved its objectives, but the butcher's bill was staggering.
It typically implies the cost was high and perhaps not worth paying.
- reckoningSettlement of accounts
- casualtiesThose killed or wounded
- fatalitiesLosses of life
- killed in actionDied during combat operations
- fallen soldiersTroops killed in warfare
battlefield reports · wounded · memorials · war poetry · death toll · casualty lists · collateral damage · human cost · blood price · combat injuries · war dead · wartime journalism · toll · losses · historical narratives · body count · slaughter · oral histories
butcher's billsalvation
Deliverance from harm
deliverance · mercy · preservation · reprieve
butcher's billpeace dividend
Resources freed by military cuts
armistice · ceasefire · peacetime · truce · demobilization
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