Dictionary

final solution en · NOUN

Pronunciation

• (US) audio

Etymology

Calque of German Endlösung, which is short for Endlösung der Judenfrage (“Final Solution to the Jewish Question”)

Meanings

1. (capitalized, historical, often) The planned and attempted mass murder of the European Jews by the Nazis; the Holocaust.
   • Criticizing China’s actions alone is not enough. The United States, which at first called the Nazis' Final Solution a "war rumor," according to the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, must not make the same mistake again. The United States cannot stand idly by and let its economic relationship with Beijing cloud its judgment. 2019 December 19, Grace Funk, “Opinion: The U.S. should do more to stop China's reeducation camps”, in Los Angeles Times, archived from the original on 31 May 2025:
2. (broadly) Any similar attempted or successful genocide.
   • Why such urgency and why suddenly a final solution in Xinjiang? […] Toward this objective, China's recent three supreme leaders, Jiang Zemin, Hu Jintao and the incumbent Xi Jinping, all embrace such a new security agenda and engage in feverish Xinjiang ethnic pacification and military buildup campaigns, with each of the three leaders having his own landmark event in implementing this Xinjiang final solution. 2018 October 9, Miles Maochun Yu, “China's Final Solution In Xinjiang”, in Hoover Institution, archived from the original on 14 Mar 2019:
3. Used other than figuratively or idiomatically: see final, solution.
   • Thus to argue that there is no final solution to this problem would be a disguised form of pretentious finality, [...] 1975, Bernard D. den Ouden, Language and Creativity: an interdisciplinary essay in Chomskyan humanism, →ISBN, page 8:
   • Each mol of nitric acid gives three mol of nitrous acid which is therefore present in the final solution to the amount of 0.048 mol per liter. 1911, Gilbert N. Lewis, Arthur Edgar, “The Equilibrium between nitric acid, nitrous acid and nitric oxide”, in The Journal of the American Chemical Society, volume 33, page 297:

Forms

Relateds

Jewish Question

Translations (10)

es solución final (planned and attempted mass murder of the European Jews) · fr solution finale (planned and attempted mass murder of the European Jews) · pl ostateczne rozwiązanie (planned and attempted mass murder of the European Jews) · vi Giải pháp cuối cùng (planned and attempted mass murder of the European Jews) · pt solução final (planned and attempted mass murder of the European Jews) · sv slutgiltig lösning (planned and attempted mass murder of the European Jews) · ru оконча́тельное реше́ние (planned and attempted mass murder of the European Jews) · fi lopullinen ratkaisu (planned and attempted mass murder of the European Jews) · cmn 最終解決方案 /最终解决方案 (planned and attempted mass murder of the European Jews) · de Endlösung (planned and attempted mass murder of the European Jews)