Butchery, n.
Etymology: [OE. bocherie shambles, fr. F. boucherie. See Butcher, n.]
1. The business of a butcher. [Obs.]
2. Murder or manslaughter, esp. when committed with unusual barbarity; great or cruel slaughter. Shak. The perpetration of human butchery. Prescott.
3. A slaughterhouse; the shambles; a place where blood is shed. [Obs.] Like as an ox is hanged in the butchery. Fabyan.
Syn. -- Murder; slaughter; carnage. See Massacre.
Shades of meaning
Fernald has no entry of its own for butchery; he lists it under massacre.
Where he writes about it:
A massacre is the indiscriminate killing in numbers of the unresisting or defenseless; butchery is the killing of men rudely and ruthlessly as cattle are killed in the shambles. — from massacre
Havoc may not be so complete as massacre, nor so coldly brutal as butchery, but is more widely spread and furious; it is destruction let loose, and may be applied to organizations, interests, etc., as well as to human life; "as for Saul, he made havoc of the church," Acts viii, 3. — from massacre