lay waste

Idioms  

1. Ravage, ruin, as in The hurricane laid waste the entire seashore. Originally referring to the devastation caused by attackers, this term has come to be used more generally.

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Example Sentences

The trebuchet was the most fearsome weapon of medieval times, a giant catapult that could lay waste to any fortress by battering its walls with boulders.

From Slate • Jul. 7, 2025

Tactical nuclear weapons, as the term implies, are far smaller and less powerful than strategic nuclear armaments such as intercontinental ballistic missiles carrying nuclear payloads that could lay waste to large population centers.

From Los Angeles Times • May 6, 2024

All that can contaminate water and soil, not to mention lay waste to large tracts of land.

From Science Magazine • Nov. 1, 2022

Now, Francis thinks, “there was clearly no need for a war to lay waste to the biosphere; all that was needed was business as usual.”

From New York Times • May 31, 2021

There was no kindness, no gentleness to this departure; nothing human, but rather a degeneration into some demonic substratum of the body that had waited to lay waste to all the lineaments of grace.

From "The Astonishing Life of Octavian Nothing, Traitor to the Nation, Volume I: The Pox Party" by M.T. Anderson

Related Words

• consume
• crush
• damage
• dismantle
• end
• eradicate
• gut
• impair
• kill
• maim
• ravage
• raze
• ruin
• sabotage
• shatter
• smash
• smash-up
• wipe out
• wreck