Library / English Dictionary

DEVASTATE

Pronunciation (US):

(GB):

 I. (verb) 

Sense 1

Meaning:

Overwhelm or overpower

Example:

He was devastated by his grief when his son died

Classified under:

Verbs of size, temperature change, intensifying, etc.

Hypernyms (to "devastate" is one way to...):

overcome; overpower; overtake; overwhelm; sweep over; whelm (overcome, as with emotions or perceptual stimuli)

Sentence frame:

Something ----s somebody

Sentence example:

The bad news will devastate him

Derivation:

devastation (the feeling of being confounded or overwhelmed)

Sense 2

Meaning:

Cause extensive destruction or ruin utterly

Example:

The enemy lay waste to the countryside after the invasion

Synonyms:

desolate; devastate; lay waste to; ravage; scourge; waste

Classified under:

Verbs of size, temperature change, intensifying, etc.

Hypernyms (to "devastate" is one way to...):

destroy; ruin (destroy completely; damage irreparably)

Troponyms (each of the following is one way to "devastate"):

ruin (reduce to ruins)

Sentence frames:

Somebody ----s something
Something ----s something

Derivation:

devastation (the termination of something by causing so much damage to it that it cannot be repaired or no longer exists)

devastation (plundering with excessive damage and destruction)

devastation (an event that results in total destruction)

devastation (the state of being decayed or destroyed)

Credits

 Context examples: 

These results may help provide clues to the discovery that the meninges in humans may heal following mild traumatic brain injury (mTBI) and why additional hits to the head can be so devastating.

(Scientists watch the brain’s lining heal after a head injury, National Institutes of Health)

This research provides new ideas and tools to find ways to prevent or reverse the abnormal gelling of FUS as a treatment for these devastating diseases.

(Mechanism behind neuron death in motor neurone disease and frontotemporal dementia discovered, University of Cambridge)

The findings, which resulted from 15 years of research in South Africa's Karoo Basin, show that an event 250 million years ago devastated marine life but didn't affect life on land.

(Mass extinction of land and sea biodiversity 250 million years ago not simultaneous, National Science Foundation)

This lack of selectivity in directing anticancer drugs is the cause of the often devastating side effects that cancer patients experience during chemotherapy treatment.

(Scientists successfully deliver “Trojan horse” catalysts into cancerous tumour cells to destroy them from within, Universities of Granada)

The effects of the Eldgjá eruption must have been devastating for the young colony on Iceland – very likely, land was abandoned and famine severe.

(Volcanic eruption influenced Iceland’s conversion to Christianity, University of Cambridge)

Excessive fire suppression might be devastating to the species that depend on natural savanna habitats, both in Brazil and in other regions of the world such as parts of Africa.

(Fire control harms biodiversity in Brazilian savannah, SciDev.Net)

In wandering round the shattered walls and through the devastated interior, I gathered evidence that the calamity was not of late occurrence.

(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)

This study provides important insights into how a devastating disease has affected bats in the U.S. Such information is essential for developing management plans to help save these species.

(Hibernation season over, will disease-ridden bats emerge from caves and mines this spring?, NSF)

From 2015 to 2016, Bahia was the state most severely hit by deforestation—12,288 hectares cleared, 207% higher than the previous 3,997 hectares of native vegetation devastated.

(Brazilian Atlantic Forest deforestation up nearly 60% in a year, Agência Brasil)

The researchers, led by the University of Cambridge, applied an experimental gene therapy treatment in mice and were able to successfully target and eliminate the damaged DNA in mitochondria which causes the devastating conditions.

(Mitochondrial diseases could be treated with gene therapy, The Titi Tudorancea Bulletin)