DECIMATE • E-FREE TRANSLATION.COM • Definition of Decimate

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/dˈɛsəmˌeɪt/ Listen

Decimate

verb

(past & past part. decimated; pres. part. decimating)

Kill one in every ten, as of mutineers in Roman armies.

Kill in large numbers. Synonyms: annihilate, carry off, eliminate, eradicate, extinguish, wipe out.

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Etymology of 'Decimate'

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"Decimate" Quotes from Famous Books

... themselves in this position, because it is so difficult to prove anything against them. The only evidence that can decide a case of malpractice is expert evidence: that is, the evidence of other doctors; and every doctor will allow a colleague to decimate a whole countryside sooner than violate the bond of professional etiquet by giving him away. It is the nurse who gives the doctor away in private, because every nurse has some particular doctor whom she likes; and she usually assures her patients that all the others are disastrous ...

— The Doctor's Dilemma: Preface on Doctors • George Bernard Shaw

... the chase and to battle. Even to-day, the lurking Indian foeman is no mean adversary to be laughed and brushed out of the way, notwithstanding disease, war, assassination and necessary chastisement have united rapidly to decimate his race, thereby gradually lessening its power. Thirty years ago the rolling plains were alive with them, and their numbers alone made them formidable. It is not strange that the untutored savages of the prairie, like those of ...

— The Life and Adventures of Kit Carson, the Nestor of the Rocky Mountains, from Facts Narrated by Himself • De Witt C. Peters

Words linked to "Decimate" : kill, decimation