havoc

Etymology

From Middle English havok, havyk, from Old French havok in the phrase crier havok (“cry havoc”) a signal to soldiers to seize plunder, from Old French crier (“cry out, shout”) + havot (“pillaging, looting”), of obscure origin. Probably from a derivative of Old French *haf, hef (“hook”), from Frankish *haf, *habbjā, *happjā (“pruning-hook, scythe”), derived from Proto-Germanic *habjaną (“to take up, lift”), related to Old French havee (“handful”), Old French havet (“pruning-hook”), Old High German habba, heppa (“pruning-hook, scythe”), modern German Hippe (“billhook”). If so, then also related to English heave and doublet of hatchet.

noun

1. Widespread devastation and destruction.
   But when I had come to that part of the city which I judged to have contained the relics I sought I found havoc that had been wrought there even greater than elsewhere. 1918, Edgar Rice Burroughs, The People that Time Forgot, HTML edition, The Gutenberg Project, published 2008
2. Mayhem.

verb

1. To pillage.
2. To cause havoc.

intj

1. A cry in war as the signal for indiscriminate slaughter.