victim

American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition

1. n. One who is harmed or killed by another: a victim of a mugging.
2. n. A living creature slain and offered as a sacrifice during a religious rite.
3. n. One who is harmed by or made to suffer from an act, circumstance, agency, or condition: victims of war.
4. n. A person who suffers injury, loss, or death as a result of a voluntary undertaking: You are a victim of your own scheming.
5. n. A person who is tricked, swindled, or taken advantage of: the victim of a cruel hoax.

Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia

1. n. A living being sacrificed to a deity, or in the performance of a religious rite; usually, some beast slain in sacrifice: but the sacrifice of human beings has been practised by many peoples with the object of appeasing the wrath or conciliating the favor of some deity, or in the ceremonies connected with the making of vows and covenants.
2. n. A person sacrificed; a person killed or ruined, or greatly injured, or made to suffer in the pursuit of an object, or for the gratification of a passion or infatuation, or from disease or disaster: as, many have fallen victims to jealousy, to ambition; a victim to rheumatism; the victims of a railroad accident.
3. n. One who is cheated or duped; a dupe; a gull: as, the victim of a confidence man.

Wiktionary

1. n. original sense A living creature which is slain and offered as human or animal sacrifice, usually in a religious rite; by extension, the transfigurated body and blood of Christ in the Eucharist.
2. n. Anyone who is harmed by another.
3. n. An aggrieved or disadvantaged party in a crime (e.g. swindle.)
4. n. A person who suffers any other injury, loss, or damage as a result of a voluntary undertaking.
5. n. An unfortunate person who suffers from a disaster or other adverse circumstance.
6. n. Narratology. A character who is conquered or manipulated by a villain.

GNU Webster's 1913

1. n. A living being sacrificed to some deity, or in the performance of a religious rite; a creature immolated, or made an offering of.
2. n. A person or thing destroyed or sacrificed in the pursuit of an object, or in gratification of a passion.
3. n. A person or living creature destroyed by, or suffering grievous injury from, another, from fortune or from accident.
4. n. colloq. Hence, one who is duped, or cheated; a dupe; a gull.

WordNet 3.0

1. n. an unfortunate person who suffers from some adverse circumstance
2. n. a person who is tricked or swindled