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destroy

[dih-stroi]

verb (used with object)

to reduce (an object) to useless fragments, a useless form, or remains, as by rending, burning, or dissolving; injure beyond repair or renewal; demolish; ruin; annihilate.

to put an end to; extinguish.

to kill; slay.

to render ineffective or useless; nullify; neutralize; invalidate.

to defeat completely.

verb (used without object)

to engage in destruction.

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Destroy is one of our favorite verbs.

So is absquatulate. Does it mean:

to bark; yelp.

to flee; abscond:

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Origin:
1175–1225; Middle English destroyen < Old French destruire < Vulgar Latin *dēstrūgere, for Latin dēstruere (dē- de- + struere to pick up, build)

Related forms

de·stroy·a·ble, adjective

half-de·stroyed, adjective

pre·de·stroy, verb (used with object)

self-de·stroyed, adjective

self-de·stroy·ing, adjective

EXPAND

un·de·stroyed, adjective

well-de·stroyed, adjective

COLLAPSE

Can be confused: decimal, decimate, destroy (see usage note at decimate; see synonym note at the current entry).

Synonyms
1. smash, level, waste, ravage, devastate. Destroy, demolish, raze imply reducing a thing to uselessness. To destroy is to reduce something to nothingness or to take away its powers and functions so that restoration is impossible: Fire destroys a building. Disease destroys tissues. To demolish is to destroy something organized or structured: to demolish a machine. To raze is to level down to the ground: to raze a fortress. 2. extirpate, annihilate, uproot.

Antonyms
1, 2. create.

Dictionary.com Unabridged
Based on the Random House Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2012.
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Link To destroy

Example Sentences

Destroy the misconceptions by having students read primary sources they would not pick up on their own.

Narrative, description and quotation illustrate a universal tendency to overfish and destroy.

But damming rivers may destroy or disrupt wildlife and other natural resources.

EXPAND

Destroy the misconceptions by having students read primary sources they would not pick up on their own.

Narrative, description and quotation illustrate a universal tendency to overfish and destroy.

But damming rivers may destroy or disrupt wildlife and other natural resources.

They preserve what has a value for them and will destroy everything that has in their eyes no value.

Hunt suspected that humans alone could not destroy the forests this quickly.

Some common fishing practices destroy critical features in the environment that wildlife depends on.

Send it out to sea in search of a humanitarian aid ship to destroy.

He removed the heart so carefully not because he intended to eat, or otherwise, destroy it.

The internet was supposed to destroy off-line booksellers.

Lava can burn, bury, and destroy everything in its path.

The exposure would prompt the body's immune system to raise its own disease-fighting antibodies to destroy the protein.

To spare you is no profit, to destroy you is no loss.

Destroy slugs and snails or put them in a bag and toss them in the garbage.

But don't worry, it won't destroy all your files or replicate itself and spread to all your friends' inboxes.

It is about the vicious use of false reasons to destroy professors.

In a single day the anchor of a cruise ship can destroy an area of coral reef half the size of a football pitch.

But it is destined to repeat its violent past and destroy itself again.

But the high temperatures can destroy some nutrients too.

If you put up a satellite in that lane, it'll get hit by some debris, which will destroy the satellite.

Destroy any lilies that have mottled leaves or are seriously stunted.

Tuberculosis is hard to defeat in part because it produces a molecule that can destroy many antibiotics.

The foundation rejected a request two years ago to destroy the tapes.

It seems that someone had given the order to destroy their records.

However, people can destroy it in a single planting season or with a single landscaping endeavor.

If it hits, it would destroy everything within a few hundred miles.

Loggers also destroy silky habitat when they cut down, illegally, valuable rosewood trees.

In fall, clean up all debris and destroy infected plants, including their root balls.

It'll fry pace makers, destroy iPhones, and turn laptops into useless paperweights.

But it shows what can happen if too many people embrace a luxury brand-and, thereby, destroy the myth of exclusivity.

Hopefully one of those will hit it or maybe a bunch of them will hit it and destroy it.

The researchers' next step is to broaden the types of bacteria that their nanoparticles can destroy.

The melting of ice-rich permafrost can destroy the physical foundation of everything above: tundra and forests, houses and roads.

Repeated applications are usually needed to destroy the root system.

So on the one hand ultra-short pulses can be used to selectively destroy cancerous cells.

Falling into the trap of this globalist socialism will destroy the precious brotherhood of our country.

Don't let a computer failure destroy your precious memories.

In fact, computation as it is currently carried out depends on many operations that destroy information.

One would think that open-pit coal mining would destroy fossils.

Also, rake up and destroy any remaining fallen fruit and leaves.

In this mode, there are no zombies to destroy your creations, and you don't have to mine bricks.

Even if the virus continued to destroy the patient's immune cells, new ones that could not be infected would replace them.

Wildfire-an ancient lord of the wilderness-can create life as well as destroy it.

Unchecked, the sea urchins can destroy an entire forest.

The monsters move one ring at a time in a straight line-when they reach a wall, they destroy it but lose one hit point.

House owners were told to destroy the extra rooms they had built in their courtyards and rented out.

Back then, scientists didn't have ways to date archaeological remains that didn't destroy the remains in the process.

Certainly it should be moved, but they shouldn't destroy it.

Modeled on a powerful real-life laser, it can destroy an enemy in one shot.

Rarely has a company managed to destroy so much shareholder value in so short a time.

Many small mouths can destroy a body faster than one big one.

The air force runs one for anti-satellite warfare, designed to destroy or disable enemy birds.

Exposing them to the polluted air of the modern world will inevitably destroy them.

He maintains that notching would destroy the chances of ever completing the dam-something that the corps denies.

T cells attack those infected cells and destroy them before the disease can multiply and spread.

However, the government can do a lot of things to destroy confidence.

Thus capitalism employs the critique that was designed to destroy it.

If they do not destroy the bug, they soon will not be able to compete.

If you destroy your heritage and scenery, you will come to regret it.

But what would really make a difference would be the ability to destroy incoming artillery rounds.

The largely secret weapon would use beams of concentrated light to destroy enemy satellites in orbit.

The true story of the spy network that tried to destroy the civil rights movement.

Surprisingly, drugs meant to destroy vasculature can make.

The cowbirds then monitor these nests and destroy them if the host removes the foreign.

In a quiet suburb, a troubled and lonely teenager plots to destroy his enemies.

It is nothing but a hatchet job by this person who wants to destroy unions and destroy labor education".

Heated debate expected next week over when to destroy lab samples of deadly virus.

People have long suspected that the radiation microwave ovens emit can destroy nutrients in food.

Gravity works: it is easier to destroy than to build.

Now researchers have unveiled a new method of attack: starving fat cells of their lifeblood in order to destroy them.

Bees commonly build and destroy these so it doesn't necessarily mean there is a supersedure.

Frenhofer's drive for perfection had led him to destroy his picture.

When commercial radio took off, musicians bellyached that it would destroy them.

The label allows them to pick out and destroy the cancerous cells.

Another set of cells, osteoclasts, destroy it where it is deemed no longer necessary.

Additionally, tractors and skidders used to remove the hardwoods destroy the forest floor and promote additional logging.

The ocean weed smothers marine plants and animals, and releases a toxin that can destroy the eggs of many smaller species.

But if it doesn't destroy you, it will surely make you more hardy.

Randi manages to completely destroy the man's claims to psychic powers by merely sprinkling styrofoam around the page in question.

They are essentially killers who have found a legal way to destroy people.

They also destroy factories, roads, electricity lines and offices.

Sometimes humans destroy animals in such large numbers that whole species have become extinct.

Cruciferous vegetables contain compounds that preferentially destroy ineffective mutant p53 tumor suppressor.

In ancient times, on the first day of the lunar year, a dragon would descend to destroy villages and crops.

Data would never stand idly by waiting for a command to destroy a planet.

And you can't play to an audience who hates you because they'll, umm, leave or destroy you.

Rather fewer may be aware that the tourists retracing his footsteps threaten to destroy the archipelago's unique ecosystem.

Wildfires can destroy anything and everything in their path.

Still, it is large enough to destroy sensitive micro-electronic components.

Researchers are using this ultrashort-pulse laser to destroy the protein shell of viruses.

Their answer is that computers won't destroy interpretation.

Even a tiny fragment of such junk can destroy a satellite.

Instead, different types of bacteria in the cluster interact in ways that ultimately destroy the coral.

Avoid using poisons, that once entered into the food-chain, will destroy more than cats.

They are indistinguishable from me, and their destruction would destroy my art".

He is willing to destroy our country rather than admit that he has made some major mistakes.

Yet the power of the water to destroy is almost equally matched by its power to create.

Images leaping off the screen destroy that illusion.

Chimney fires could beget larger blazes that would destroy blocks and blocks of wooden houses.

The major effect is that they can destroy exports, so industry and tourism takes a nose dive.

Environmentalists now say such attention could destroy these precious ecosystems.

All attempts to destroy it have failed, and it appears to be resistant to all known poisons.

Black bears will frequently destroy cameras that trigger a flash at.

Along the way, you will deal with a shady organization that wants to destroy the world.

Tornadoes, nukes--they're all out to destroy our family values.

In some countries it was able to remove or destroy almost everything.

The park is also under threat by traders who destroy its forests to make cooking.

Being human doesn't give us the right to destroy the planet to advance the interests of a few.

They destroy there homes when they get over populated and there is not enough feed for them let alone cattle or sheep.

It took him years of legal battling and lobbying to get permission to destroy the historic building.

It is the weapon of those who wish to destroy education.

At the same time, he manages virtually to destroy the world financial markets and win back the affections of his wife, an artist.

Though only about one-sixteenth-inch in size, they can destroy a hive of tens of thousands of bees in as little as six months.

If a vaccine causes the immune system to destroy infected cells, the cancer will be killed anyway.

Surplus elephant populations damage crops and destroy the habitat of other wildlife.

Stimulating the immune system to destroy tumor cells has long been a hope-but judging from past studies, perhaps a dashed one.

Raising official inflation-rate targets, they say, would destroy years of hard-won credibility.

Just as the sun allows our atmosphere to remain stable, so too can it destroy civilization.

One lesson from the rankings is that costly acquisitions are a good way to destroy value.

Despite speculation that snakeheads might destroy an ecosystem by devouring all other.

The ignorant always seem to try and destroy those that don't appear or believe as they.

Some flooding from that overspill results-but not as much as if the spill were allowed to erode and destroy the levee itself.

Tsunamis often destroy boats and leave them wrecked above the normal waterline.

Bush is an alien organism and is trying to destroy the entire planet.

Abuse of opiates such as heroin, methadone and morphine destroy brain cells, reducing attention span and memory.

COLLAPSE

Collins

World English Dictionary

destroy (dɪˈstrɔɪ)

—vb
1.	to ruin; spoil; render useless
2.	to tear down or demolish; break up; raze
3.	to put an end to; do away with; extinguish
4.	to kill or annihilate
5.	to crush, subdue, or defeat
6.	(intr) to be destructive or cause destruction

[C13: from Old French destruire, from Latin dēstruere to pull down, from de- + struere to pile up, build]

de'stroyable

—*adj*

Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 10th Edition
2009 © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins
Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009
Cite This Source

Etymonline

Word Origin & History

destroy

earlly 13c., from O.Fr. destruire, from V.L. *destrugerie (infl. by destructos), from L. destruere "tear down, demolish," lit. "un-build," from de- "un-, down" + struere "to pile, build" (see structure).

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"Out of life's school of war.—What does not destroy me, makes me stronger."

-Friedrich Nietzsche

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