Decimate
From open-dictionary.com - the free dictionary.
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English
Etymology
From Latin decimare, from Decimus, tenth, from decem, ten, originally referring to the killing of every tenth Roman legionnaire in a mutinous or poorly-performing legion.
Pronunciation
- decimate: /'de-s&-"mAt/
- decimated: /'de-s&-"mAtd/
Transitive verb
decimate
- To severely reduce; to destroy almost completely.
- The smallpox epidemic decimated the population.
- (computer graphics) To replace a high-resolution mesh of polygons with one of lower resolution but acceptably similar appearance.
- (obsolete) To reduce by one in ten, or ten percent.
- The legion was decimated after every member refused to name the culprit.
- (obsolete) to exact a tax of 10 percent from
Usage Note
The definition reduce by one in ten is occasionally cited as "the correct" definition, with severely reduce considered a "misconception". While the second is doubtless based on the re-analysis that deci- refers to dividing by ten and not to eliminating a tenth, it is nonetheless the current usage, and has been for centuries. If you use decimate in the first sense in general writing, expect to be misunderstood.
For example, of the 23 occurrences of decimate in the British National Corpus, almost all clearly accord with the modern sense. The only references to the original sense are two complaints about modern usage and its critics. Interestingly, none of the 23 uses seems to mean reduce to one-tenth.
Evidently the data used to support the OED entry were similar.
Related Terms
Translations
- Swedish: decimera (1,3)
