decimate

[des-uh-meyt]

See more synonyms for decimate on Thesaurus.com

verb (used with object), dec·i·mat·ed, dec·i·mat·ing.

to destroy a great number or proportion of: The population was decimated by a plague.
to select by lot and kill every tenth person of.
Obsolete. to take a tenth of or from.

Origin of decimate

1590–1600; < Latin decimātus, past participle of decimāre “to punish every tenth man chosen by lot,” verbal derivative of decimus “tenth,” derivative of decem ten; see -ate¹

Related formsdec·i·ma·tion, noundec·i·ma·tor, noun

Can be confuseddecimal decimatedecimate destroy (see usage note at the current entry)

Usage note

The earliest English sense of decimate is “to select by lot and execute every tenth soldier of (a unit).” The extended sense “destroy a great number or proportion of” developed in the 19th century: Cholera decimated the urban population. Because the etymological sense of one-tenth remains to some extent, decimate is not ordinarily used with exact fractions or percentages: Drought has destroyed (not decimated ) nearly 80 percent of the cattle.

Dictionary.com Unabridged Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2018

Related Words for decimation

murder, slaughter, bloodbath, genocide, extermination, carnage, bloodshed, assassination, liquidation, eradication, elimination, extinction, demolition, destruction, decimation, bloodletting, butchery, annihilation, massacre, holocaust

Examples from the Web for decimation

Contemporary Examples of decimation

But the site has seen little of the decimation from heavy tourism that has plagued the northern pyramids of Giza in Egypt.
Egypt Ain’t The Only Pyramid Show In Town
Nina Strochlic
December 11, 2014
In Texas, the grave consequences of the decimation of state family-planning funds in 2011 are already evident.
Isabel Allende: How a Mysterious Baby Girl Sparked My Fight for Women
Isabel Allende
October 20, 2012

Historical Examples of decimation

They, too, feared another insurrection and a second decimation.
Critical Miscellanies (Vol. 1 of 3)
John Morley
Was this the case with even a decimation of the army who rushed to defend Washington?
The Oxford Book of American Essays
Various
What is our compensation for the decimation of our young men?
Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 65, No. 399, January 1849
Various
The Texans in their escape and conflicts had lost five men, and Santa Anna demanded the decimation of the rest.
Graham's Magazine Vol XXXII No. 6 June 1848
Various
Then the figure-four trap springs up in the hedgerow and the sedge while the work of decimation goes more rapidly along.
Our Vanishing Wild Life
William T. Hornaday

British Dictionary definitions for decimation

decimate

verb (tr)

to destroy or kill a large proportion ofa plague decimated the population
(esp in the ancient Roman army) to kill every tenth man of (a mutinous section)

Derived Formsdecimation, noundecimator, noun

Word Origin for decimate

C17: from Latin decimāre, from decimus tenth, from decem ten

usage

One talks about the whole of something being decimated, not a part: disease decimated the population, not disease decimated most of the population

Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012

Word Origin and History for decimation

mid-15c., from Late Latin decimationem (nominative decimatio), noun of action from past participle stem of Latin decimare "the removal or destruction of one-tenth," from decem "ten" (see ten). Earliest sense in English was of a tithe; punishment sense is from 1580s; transferred sense of "much destruction, severe loss" recorded from 1680s.

decimate

c.1600, in reference to the practice of punishing mutinous military units by capital execution of one in every 10, by lot; from Latin decimatus, past participle of decimare (see decimation). Killing one in ten, chosen by lots, from a rebellious city or a mutinous army was a common punishment in classical times. The word has been used (incorrectly, to the irritation of pedants) since 1660s for "destroy a large portion of." Related: Decimated; decimating.