decimate means A tithe or other 10% tax or payment. It carries an Arena rating of 1424, earned across 5 head-to-head judged battles.
Among words judged in Lexicurio's Arena, decimate ranks #1,070 of 17,122 for Most Betrayed by Its Sound, #1,412 of 17,093 for Most Storied Words, #1,889 of 17,130 for Most Ingenious Words, #2,161 of 17,130 for Best Fossil-Poetry Words.
decimate is pronounced /ˈdɛsɪmeɪt/.
Why “decimate” is a great word
To kill, destroy, or remove a large proportion of something, originally and specifically to kill one in every ten of a group as a military punishment. From Latin decimatus, past participle of decimare ("to take a tenth, to tithe"), from decimus ("tenth"); first attested in English c. 1600. Unlike "annihilate" (which implies a scorched-earth totality) or "slaughter" (which suggests chaotic butchery), to decimate is to perform a cold, bureaucratic calculus of loss. It is the methodical fall of every tenth man in a doomed rank, the silent tallying of names before the execution, the survivor counting the empty spaces in a once-uniform row—a quiet reminder that the most terrifying destruction is often the one administered by rule.
Etymology
The verb is first attested in 1591, the noun in 1641; borrowed from Latin decimātus, perfect passive participle of decimō (“to kill one tenth; to tithe”) (see, from -ate (verb-forming suffix) and -ate (noun-forming suffix)), from decimus (“tenth”) + -ō (verb-forming suffix). As a noun, via Latin decimatus (“tithing area; tithing rights”).
noun
- A tithe or other 10% tax or payment.
- A tenth of something.
- A set of ten items.
verb
- To kill one-tenth of (a group), (historical, specifically) as a military punishment in the Roman army selected by lot, usually carried out by the surviving soldiers.e.g.“God sometimes decimates or tithes delinquent persons, and they died for a common crime, according as God hath cast their lot in the decrees of predestination.”
- To destroy or remove one-tenth of (something).
- To devastate: to reduce or destroy significantly but not completely.e.g.“[England] had decimated itself for a question which involved no principle, and led to no result.”
- To exact a tithe or other 10% tax.
- To tithe: to pay a 10% tax.
- To divide into tenths; to decimalize.
- To reduce to one-tenth: to destroy or remove nine-tenths of (something).e.g.“In this dramatic picture, the nation is literally decimated, and even the tenth which remains is subjected to a further destruction.”
- To replace (a high-resolution model) with another of lower but acceptable quality. (Usually algorithmically)e.g.“A decimate tool allows us to obtain a more coarse-grained view of the data over the full n-dimensional space.”
Words closest in meaning
By meaning, not spelling — each word's AI semantic fingerprint, nearest first.