Synonyms

destroy

American

[dih-stroi] / dɪˈstrɔɪ /

verb (used with object)

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.

Synonyms:

devastate, ravage, waste, level, smash

Antonyms:

create
to put an end to; extinguish.

Synonyms:

uproot, annihilate, extirpate

Antonyms:

create
to kill; slay.
to render ineffective or useless; nullify; neutralize; invalidate.
to defeat completely.

verb (used without object)

to engage in destruction.

destroy British

/ dɪˈstrɔɪ /

verb

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

"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

Synonym Usage

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.

Other Word Forms

Derived Forms

Inflected Forms

Participles

Conjugated Forms

Present

Past

Future

Etymology

Origin of destroy

First recorded in 1175–1225; Middle English destroyen, from Old French destruire, from Vulgar Latin dēstrūgere (unattested), for Latin dēstruere ( dē- de- + struere “to pick up, build”)

Explanation

When your little brother breaks your carefully constructed Lego village into its tiny parts, he destroys it. To destroy is to completely demolish. To destroy is the opposite of to construct or to build. When you destroy something, you cause destruction, when you build something, you are involved in its construction. In war, soldiers are sometimes sent on missions to search and destroy. This means their job is to find a target and completely take it out. Destroy doesn't have to be physical though. If you get an F in your math class, that could destroy your dream of going to an Ivy League university and too much criticism can destroy your self-esteem.

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Example Sentences

Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.

See Examples For:

destroy destroys destroyed destroying

They say elephants destroy crops and infrastructure and pose a danger to people, particularly as their range increasingly overlaps with farms and settlements.

From BBC ● Sep. 30, 2026

Britain gave Washington permission in March to use Fairford for "specific defensive operations into Iran" to destroy Iranian missiles at source.

From Barron's ● Sep. 29, 2026

“If we destroy civilization, we don’t get that.”

From The Wall Street Journal ● Sep. 28, 2026

‘The Deb’ producers have sued Rebel Wilson for defamation after she called them out, accusing them of retaliating and trying to destroy her directorial debut.

From Los Angeles Times ● Sep. 26, 2026

If we went through with the exorcism, it would destroy both Yakov and me indiscriminately.

From "The City Beautiful" by Aden Polydoros

Antigone loses her life and Creon, for all intents and purposes, destroys his own, suffering the deaths of his most cherished loved ones.

From Los Angeles Times ● Sep. 11, 2026

"It destroys the quality of our education… We cannot study normally."

From BBC ● Sep. 7, 2026

During a crisis, support is often essential to prevent a downward spiral that destroys the financial system.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 16, 2026

Stanford researchers have identified a previously unknown immune cell that destroys nearby cells by exploding.

From Science Daily ● Aug. 5, 2026

Yet dividing by zero destroys the fabric of mathematics and the framework of logic—and threatens to undermine the very basis of science.

From "Zero: The Biography of a Dangerous Idea" by Charles Seife

Advocates argue that fire victims already have been through enough, and paying the tax as a result of selling a house that’s been destroyed is unfair.

From Los Angeles Times ● Oct. 1, 2026

"The whole area is destroyed," the 32-year-old said, adding that residents were being kept away from the strike sites.

From Barron's ● Oct. 1, 2026

Earlier this year, one man died in a wildfire in Gloucestershire, while 19 homes were destroyed in Stourbridge, near Birmingham, and villagers were evacuated in the Cairngorms.

From BBC ● Sep. 29, 2026

The three belligerent empires were destroyed by the war, replaced by revolutionary regimes and a string of new nation-states.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Sep. 29, 2026

The Library of Congress collection was also destroyed, with some 3,000 books going up in flames.

From "In the Shadow of Liberty" by Kenneth C. Davis

Bass has been dogged by high unfavorable ratings since the Palisades fire, which broke out in January 2025 while she was out of the country, destroying thousands of homes and leaving 12 dead.

From Los Angeles Times ● Oct. 1, 2026

Those bodies subsequently melted, destroying the physical evidence and making the oldest chondrules much harder to find in surviving meteorites.

From Science Daily ● Sep. 23, 2026

But if - as seems the case right now - the chances of anyone facing consequences for destroying a heritage site are close to zero, then there is all but no real deterrent.

From BBC ● Sep. 19, 2026

Talk of heading off AI’s potential role in destroying humanity hurt some stocks and helped others, with major U.S. indexes edging lower.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Sep. 15, 2026

It’s creating its own wild patterns, disrupting, destroying paths.

From "Paradise on Fire" by Jewell Parker Rhodes

Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023