Copyright © Philip M. Parker, INSEAD. Terms of Use.
Definition: Decimate |
DecimateVerb1. Kill in large numbers; "the plague wiped out an entire population". Source: WordNet 1.7.1 Copyright © 2001 by Princeton University. All rights reserved. |
Date "decimate" was first used in popular English literature: sometime before 1824. (references) |
Note: Decimate \Dec"i*mate\, transitive verb. [imperative past participle Decimated; present participle verb or noun Decimating.]. (Websters 1913) |
Synonyms: DecimateSynonyms: annihilate (v), carry off (v), eliminate (v), eradicate (v), extinguish (v), wipe out (v). (additional references) |
| Context | Synonyms within Context (source: adapted from Roget's Thesaurus). |
Deterioration | Damnify; (aggrieve); do one's worst; knock down; deal a blow to; play havoc with, play sad havoc with, play the mischief with, play the deuce with, play the very devil with, play havoc among, play sad havoc among, play the mischief among, play the deuce among, play the very devil among; decimate. |
Fewness | Render few; Adjective: reduce, diminish the number, weed, eliminate, cull, thin, decimate. |
Killing | Give no quarter, pour out blood like water; decimate; run amuck; wade knee deep in blood, imbrue one's hands in blood. |
Nonaddition Subtraction | Garble, mutilate, amputate, detruncate; cut off, cut away, cut out; abscind, excise; pare, thin, prune, decimate; abrade, scrape, file; geld, castrate; eliminate. |
Punishment | Execute; bring to the block, bring to the gallows; behead, decapitate, guillotine; decollate; hang, turn off, gibbet, bowstring, hang draw and quarter; shoot; decimate; burn; break on the wheel, crucify; empale, impale; flay; lynch; electrocute; gas, send to the gas chamber. |
Quinquesection | Decimate; quinquesect. |
Weakness | Render weak; Adjective: weaken, enfeeble, debilitate, shake, deprive of strength, relax, enervate, eviscerate; unbrace, unnerve; cripple, unman; (render powerless); cramp, reduce, sprain, strain, blunt the edge of; dilute, impoverish; decimate; extenuate; reduce in strength, reduce the strength of; mettre de l'eau dans son vin. |
| Source: adapted from Roget's Thesaurus. | |
Crosswords: Decimate |
| English words defined with "decimate": Decimated, Decimating. (references) |
| "Decimate" is generally used as a lexical verb (infinitive) -- approximately 86.96% of the time. "Decimate" is used about 23 times out of a sample of 100 million words spoken or written in English. Its rank is based on over 700,000 words used in the English language. Some parts-of-speech are not covered due to the samples used by the British National Corpus. (note: percents less than one-hundredth of one percent have been omitted) |
| Parts of Speech | Percent | Usage per 100 Million Words | Rank in English |
| Lexical Verb (infinitive) | 86.96% | 20 | 78,262 |
| Lexical Verb (base form) | 13.04% | 3 | 202,518 |
| Total | 100.00% | 23 | N/A |
Source: compiled by the editor from several corpora; see credits.
| The following statistics estimate the number of searches per day across the major English-language search engines as identified by various trade publications. Hyperlinks lead to commercial use of the expression at Amazon.com. |
| Expression | Frequency per Day |
decimate | 3 |
| Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. | |
| Language | Translations for "decimate"; alternative meanings/domain in parentheses. | |
Albanian | shkatërroj (bash up, blow away, break to pieces, bust up, cast down, consume, crock, dash, defeat, demolish, depauperate, depredate, destroy, do for, do in, eat, erode, explode, flatten, gut, kill, level, rase, ravage, raze, rout, ruin, shake down, shatter, sink, smash, smite, subvert, take away, tear to pieces, throw down, trample down, unbuild, vandalize, wreck, zap), pushkatoj çdo të dhjetë, marr të dhjetën, ekzikutoj, asgjësoj (annihilate, destroy, devour, disannul, eliminate, exterminate, extinguish, extirpate, fast, finish, finish off, frustrate, liquidate, overturn, rub out, scathe, shake down, slate, smite, stultify, trample down, unbuild, undo, unmake, uproot). (various references) | |
Arabic | هلك القسم الأعظم, قارع عشريا, أخذ عشر الشىء. (various references) | |
Bulgarian | убивам всеки десети от, вземам десятък, намалявам рязко (slash), покосявам (cut down, mow down, strike down). (various references) | |
Chinese | 消灭 (Decimated, Decimating, Eliminate, Eliminated, Eliminating, Perish, Perished, Perishing). (various references) | |
Czech | decimovat (drag down). (various references) | |
Farsi | تلفات زیادواردکردن , ازهرده نفریکی راکشتن . (various references) | |
French | décimer (destroy). (various references) | |
German | dezimieren (deplete, thin). (various references) | |
Greek | αποδεκατίζω. (various references) | |
Hebrew | ל"שמי" חלק '"ול. (various references) | |
Hungarian | tizedel (to decimate), megtizedel (to decimate). (various references) | |
Indonesian | membunuh besar-besaran. (various references) | |
Italian | decimare. (various references) | |
Korean | 사람을 죽이십시". (various references) | |
Manx | stroie jaghee (decimation). (various references) | |
Pig Latin | ecimateday.(various references) | |
Portuguese | dizimar (devour). (various references) | |
Romanian | decima. (various references) | |
Russian | косить (cut, mow, mown, scythe, slant, squint), казнить каждого десятого, опустошать (deplenish, depredate, devastate, gut, havoc, lay waste, overrun, ravage, reave, reive, scourges), истреблять (consume, devour, exterminate, extirpate). (various references) | |
Serbo-Croatian | desetkovati. (various references) | |
Spanish | diezmar (tithe). (various references) | |
Swedish | decimera. (various references) | |
Turkish | kırıp geçirmek (make havoc of, ravage), her onuncu adamı öldürmek, önemli ölçüde azaltmak, çoğunu öldürmek. (various references) | |
Ukranian | страчувати кожного десятого, спустошувати (bare, deplenish, deplete, depredate, desolate, devastate, foray, gut, havoc, lay waste, overrun, play havoc, ravage, reave, reive, waste), винищувати. (various references) | |
| Source: compiled by the editor from various translation references. | ||
Derivations | |
Words beginning with "decimate": decimated, decimates. (additional references) | |
| |
"Decimate" is suggested in spellcheckers for the following: decemate, decisate, decrimate, dekemhare, delimate, Deshima, desiate, dessimate, dicimate, discrimate, dissimate, documatic, Dosmate. (additional references) | |
| Source: compiled by the editor, based on several corpora (additional references). | |
| # of Phoneme Matches | Pronunciation | Word(s) rhyming with "decimate" (pronounced de"sumā't) |
| 4 | -u m ā' t | acclimate, amalgamate, automate, glutamate, overestimate, underestimate. |
| 3 | -m ā' t | checkmate, classmate, dichromate, inmate, playmate, primate, roommate, schoolmate, shipmate, stalemate, teammate. |
Source: compiled by the editor (additional references); see credits. | ||
Scrabble® Enable2K-Verified Anagrams | |
Direct Anagrams: medicate. | |
| Words within the letters "a-c-d-e-e-i-m-t" | |
-1 letter: mediate. | |
-2 letters: deceit, emetic, ideate, itemed, meated, mediae, teamed. | |
-3 letters: acted, adeem, admit, aimed, amice, amide, cadet, cited, deice, demit, dicta, edema, edict, maced, mated, media, medic, meted, tamed, timed. | |
-4 letters: aced, acid, acme, adit, aide, amid, amie, cade, cadi, caid, came, cate, cede, cedi, cete, cite, dace, dame, date, deem, deet, deme, dice, diet, dime, dita, dite, edit, eide, emic, emit, etic, iced, idea, idem, item, mace, made, maid, mate, mead, meat, meed, meet, meta, mete, mica, mice, mite, tace, tame, team, teed, teem, tide, tied, time. | |
-5 letters: ace, act, aid, aim, ait, ami, ate, cad, cam, cat, cee, dam, dee, die, dim, dit, eat, eme, eta, ice, mac, mad, mae, mat, med, met, mid, tad, tae, tam, tea, ted, tee, tic, tie. | |
| Words containing the letters "a-c-d-e-e-i-m-t" | |
+1 letter: acetamide, decimated, decimates, emaciated, medicated, medicates. | |
+2 letters: acetamides, acidimeter, decametric, dekametric, imprecated, maledicted, medicament, miscreated, miseducate, nematicide, nematocide. | |
+3 letters: acidimeters, cinematized, decemvirate, democratize, determinacy, domesticate, emancipated, mediatrices, medicaments, mendacities, miseducated, miseducates, nematicides, nematocides, predicament, schematized, unmedicated. | |
+4 letters: acidimetries, commiserated, decemvirates, democratized, democratizer, democratizes, displacement, domesticated, domesticates, hemichordate, intermediacy, multifaceted, overmedicate, predicaments, recriminated, semidetached, vasectomized, vermiculated. | |
+5 letters: acetazolamide, basidiomycete, credentialism, decamethonium, decontaminate, democratizers, determinacies, displacements, documentaries, eudaemonistic, gonadectomies, hemichordates, indeterminacy, intercompared, interpandemic, medicamentous, overmedicated, overmedicates, tragicomedies. | |
| Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. SCRABBLE® is a registered trademark. All intellectual property rights in and to the game are owned in the U.S.A and Canada by Hasbro Inc., and throughout the rest of the world by J.W. Spear & Sons Limited of Maidenhead, Berkshire, England, a subsidiary of Mattel Inc. Mattel and Spear are not affiliated with Hasbro. | |
Hexadecimal (or equivalents, 770AD-1900s) (references)44 65 63 69 6D 61 74 65 |
| Leonardo da Vinci (1452-1519; backwards) (references)
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| American Sign Language (origins from 1620-1817 in Italy and, especially, France) (references)
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| Semaphore (1791, in France) (references)
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| Braille (1829, in France) (references)
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Morse Code (1836) (references)-.. . -.-. .. -- .- - . |
| Dancing Men (Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, 1903) (references)
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Binary Code (1918-1938, probably earlier) (references)01000100 01100101 01100011 01101001 01101101 01100001 01110100 01100101 |
HTML Code (1990) (references)D e c i m a t e |
ISO 10646 (1991-1993) (references)0044 0065 0063 0069 006D 0061 0074 0065 |
| British Sign Language (Fingerspelling, BSL; 1992, British Deaf Association Dictionary of British Sign Language) (references)
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Encryption (beginner's substitution cypher): (references)3871697579678671 |
| 1. Definition 2. Synonyms 3. Crosswords 4. Usage Frequency | 5. Expressions: Internet 6. Translations: Modern 7. Derivations 8. Rhymes | 9. Anagrams 10. Orthography 11. Bibliography |
Copyright © Philip M. Parker, INSEAD. Terms of Use.
