'Sacrifice' is Latin for 'the making sacred' — from 'sacer' (sacred) + 'facere' (to make).
An act of giving up something valued for the sake of something regarded as more important; an offering to a deity.
From Old French 'sacrifice' (sacrifice, offering), from Latin 'sacrificium' (a sacrifice, the act of making sacred), composed of 'sacer' (sacred, holy, consecrated, also accursed — the ambiguity is fundamental) + 'facere' (to make, to do), from PIE *sak- (to sanctify) + *dʰeh₁- (to put, to place, to make). A sacrifice is thus literally 'a making sacred' — the act transforms an ordinary object into something consecrated by offering it to the divine. The PIE root *sak- also produced 'sacred,' 'sacrament,' 'sacrilege' (sacred-stealing), 'sacrosanct,' and 'consecrate.' The root *dʰeh₁- is the source of an enormous
The Latin word 'sacer' (sacred) had a double meaning that unsettled even Roman jurists: it meant both 'sacred, consecrated to the gods' and 'accursed, devoted to destruction.' A 'homo sacer' in Roman law was a person who could be killed by anyone without penalty but could not be ritually sacrificed. The philosopher Giorgio Agamben built an entire political theory on this paradox.