ruinate
Americanverb (used with object)
adjective
Etymology
Origin of ruinate
1530–40; < Medieval Latin ruīnātus, past participle of ruīnāre. See ruin, -ate 1
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:
Trêves belongs to Prussia, and not to “Holy Church;” and all the old splendours of the “empire of the saints” are almost as much ruinate as those of the “empire of the Romans.”
From The Hermits by Kingsley, Charles
H. Alas, for woe! alack, that so great state The malice of this world should ruinate!
From A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Volume 8 by Hazlitt, William Carew
I only wanted the ole folks here to be satisfied as the gal had no right to my ole man, and would only ruinate herself, if she took him.”
From Her Mother's Secret by Southworth, Emma Dorothy Eliza Nevitte
And though your frames do for a time make warre Gainst Time, yet Time in time shall ruinate Your workes and names, and your last reliques marre.
From The Poetical Works of Edmund Spenser, Volume 5 by Spenser, Edmund
Fayre be ye sure, but proud and pitilesse, As is a storme, that all things doth prostrate; Finding a tree alone all comfortlesse, Beats on it strongly, it to ruinate.
From The Poetical Works of Edmund Spenser, Volume 5 by Spenser, Edmund
Here again are such stately nouns as provender and ablutions, adverbs like anew and perchance, adjectives like ruinated or commonsensical, once invaluable conjunctives like albeit.
From Time Magazine Archive
From Babylon I came by land to Mosul, which standeth nere to Niniue, which is all ruinated and destroyed: it standeth fast by the riuer of Tigris.
From The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques and Discoveries of the English Nation — Volume 10 Asia, Part III by Hakluyt, Richard
True it is, that this part vnderneath remaineth at this day inhabitable, because of the corrupt aire, as also for that by time, which consumeth all things, it is greately ruinated.
From The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques and Discoveries of the English Nation — Volume 09 Asia, Part II by Hakluyt, Richard
A second and quite unpretentious gateway admitted them to a green meadow, in shape a rough semicircle, enclosed by ruinated walls.
From Brother Copas by Quiller-Couch, Arthur Thomas, Sir
At Henrico, now Richmond, there were no more than "three old houses, a poor ruinated Church, with some few poore buildings in the Islande."
From Colonial Records of Virginia by Various
“You have seen enough of the fishes for one morrow,” returned Barbara relentlessly; “and if the fishes could see you, they should cry shame upon you for ruinating of your raiment by the damp grass.”
From Clare Avery A Story of the Spanish Armada by Holt, Emily Sarah
And here's Mrs. Cruncher, or leastways wos in the Old England times, and would be to-morrow, if cause given, a floppin' again the business to that degree as is ruinating—stark ruinating!
From A Tale of Two Cities by Dickens, Charles
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.
