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:
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 William Carew Hazlitt
The easy gods, mov'd by no other fate Than our own pray'rs, whole kingdoms ruinate, And undo families: thus strife, and war Are the sword's prize, and a litigious bar The gown's prime wish.
From Poems of Henry Vaughan, Silurist, Volume II by E. K. (Edmund Kerchever) Chambers
Whilom Fitzwater, in fair England's court, Possess'd felicity and happy state, And in his hall blithe fortune kept her sport, Which glee one hour of woe did ruinate.
From A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Volume 8 by William Carew Hazlitt
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 Charles Kingsley
Look here, I throw my infamy at thee; I will not ruinate my father's house, Who gave his blood to lime the stones together, And set up Lancaster.
From King Henry VI, Part 3 by William Shakespeare
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
Salina is a ruinated citie, and was destroyed by the Turke ten yeeres past: there are in it now but seuenteene persons, women and children.
From The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques and Discoveries of the English Nation — Volume 09 Asia, Part II by Richard Hakluyt
In 1619 Henrico was reported to have had but a few "old" houses, and a "ruinated" Church with some other buildings "in the Island."
From The First Seventeen Years: Virginia 1607-1624 by Charles E. Hatch
A loss so unrecoverable that unlesse the whole land in pitty set to their devotions, it is like never to re-obtain the former estate, but continue like ruinated Troy, or decayed Carthage.
From From John O'Groats to Land's End by Robert Naylor
A jug o’ buthermilk was capsized ower the widdy Magee’s bran new dress, that was made for the hanging precesely, and ruinated it pretty considerably intirely.
From Dealings with the Dead, Volume I (of 2) by A Sexton of the Old School
“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 Emily Sarah Holt
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 Charles Dickens
Random Word
Spin the wheel and learn a new word!
Get a wordDefinitions 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.
