A quarter of these headaches might decimate the career of a lesser star or a more timid mogul.
One set of officials advocated for a campaign to decimate ISIS in both countries by striking ISIS targets across Syria.
And, from the south, chronic wasting disease is poised to decimate the elk herds.
Foley and Gephardt warned that the legislation could decimate Democrats in the midterm elections.
But capture itself is not enough to decimate the enterprise.
You wish to shed royal blood and to decimate the nobility of the kingdom, do you?
Absolute principles create division, and inspire the temptation to decimate, to expel, to kill enemies.
Cruelty and cunning could not retain them, but it could decimate a population and lose an army in the attempt.
There is a report, also, that the Government mean to decimate the cowards who ran away yesterday, pour encourager les autres.
To decimate the guilty would have been to commit a frightful massacre.
c.1600, in reference to the practice of punishing mutinous military units by capital execution of one in every 10, by lot; from Latin decimatus, past participle of decimare (see decimation). Killing one in ten, chosen by lots, from a rebellious city or a mutinous army was a common punishment in classical times. The word has been used (incorrectly, to the irritation of pedants) since 1660s for "destroy a large portion of." Related: Decimated; decimating.
