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Synonyms

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.

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.

Nick Cage wrote: “Hopefulness is not a neutral position.... It is adversarial. It is the warrior emotion that can lay waste to cynicism.”

From Los Angeles Times • Apr. 20, 2025

My life without it is a swirl of forces, leading to natural disasters of impulsivity that often lay waste most acutely in my bank account.

From Salon • Nov. 29, 2024

It doesn’t feel that righteous, after all, to barrel into an undiscovered place and lay waste to its noble, magical creatures or even its largely sympathetic villains.

From New York Times • Jun. 18, 2024

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

From Science Magazine • Nov. 1, 2022

That fascination has infested me today like the wood-eating bugs that slowly lay waste to our house.

From "Challenger Deep" by Neal Shusterman

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

Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.