destroy
[dih-stroi]
- to reduce (an object) to useless fragments, a useless form, or remains, as by rending, burning, or dissolving; injure beyond repair or renewal; demolish; ruin; annihilate.
- to put an end to; extinguish.
- to kill; slay.
- to render ineffective or useless; nullify; neutralize; invalidate.
- to defeat completely.
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- to engage in destruction.
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Origin of destroy
1175–1225; Middle English destroyen < Old French destruire < Vulgar Latin dēstrūgere (unattested), for Latin dēstruere (dē- de- + struere “to pick up, build”)
Synonyms
See more synonyms for destroy on Thesaurus.com1. smash, level, waste, ravage, devastate. 2. extirpate, annihilate, uproot.
Synonym study
1. Destroy, demolish, raze imply reducing a thing to uselessness. To destroy is to reduce something to nothingness or to take away its powers and functions so that restoration is impossible: Fire destroys a building. Disease destroys tissues. To demolish is to destroy something organized or structured: to demolish a machine. To raze is to level down to the ground: to raze a fortress.
Antonyms
1, 2. create.
Usage note
See decimate.
Dictionary.com Unabridged
Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2018
Examples from the Web for destroy
Contemporary Examples
But at the heart of this “Truther” conspiracy theory is the idea that “someone” wants to destroy Bill Cosby.
“The United States had gone to war declaring it must destroy an active weapons of mass destruction program,” the Times reported.
Would he have been careful enough to destroy the odd pieces of jute you've left so messily about?
Anything less will mean than we are only slightly better as a nation than those who want to destroy us.
Whether or not beta-version wearables are your thing, some technology is just impossible to ignore (or destroy).
Historical Examples
Nothing but the hand of man could destroy what he was destroying; but his hand shrank not, and it was done.
MalboneThomas Wentworth Higginson
It is a crime which, if persisted in, will destroy the Government itself.
They want their own poor way, and destroy the work of their hands by the sound of their tongues.
Weighed and WantingGeorge MacDonald
Some of us are only fit to destroy what is yet worse than ourselves.
Weighed and WantingGeorge MacDonald
To treat a child wholly as an adult would be to mock and destroy it.
A Treatise on Parents and ChildrenGeorge Bernard Shaw
destroy
- to ruin; spoil; render useless
- to tear down or demolish; break up; raze
- to put an end to; do away with; extinguish
- to kill or annihilate
- to crush, subdue, or defeat
- (intr) to be destructive or cause destruction
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Word Origin
C13: from Old French destruire, from Latin dēstruere to pull down, from de- + struere to pile up, build
Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 2012 Digital Edition
© William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins
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Word Origin and History for destroy
v.
early 13c., from Old French destruire (12c., Modern French détruire) "destroy, ravage, lay waste," from Vulgar Latin *destrugere (source of Italian distruggere), refashioned (influenced by destructus), from Latin destruere "tear down, demolish," literally "un-build," from de- "un-, down" (see de-) + struere "to pile, build" (see structure (n.)). Related: Destroyed; destroying.
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Online Etymology Dictionary, © 2010 Douglas Harper