Jonestown

Meanings

Proper Noun

• A former settlement in Guyana founded by the church-turned-cult Peoples Temple, the site of an infamous mass murder/suicide in 1978.
• The Jonestown massacre itself.
• Any of a number of other places in the English-speaking world.

Noun

• Any mass suicide or murder, especially one with religious or cultic overtones.

Origin

• Jones + town, after Reverend Jim Jones, leader of the Peoples Temple.