Decimate | Define Decimate at Dictionary.com decimate verb (used with object), decimated, decimating. 1. to destroy a great number or proportion of: The population was decimated by a plague. 2. to select by lot and kill every tenth person of. 3. Obsolete. to take a tenth of or from. Origin of decimate Latin 1590-1600 1590-1600; < Latin decimātus, past participle of decimāre to punish every tenth man chosen by lot, verbal derivative of decimus tenth, derivative of decem ten ; see -ate 1 Related forms decimal , decimate, destroy (see usage note at the current entry; see synonym study at destroy ) Usage note Expand The earliest English sense of decimate is “to select by lot and execute every tenth soldier of (a unit).” The extended sense “destroy a great number or proportion of” developed in the 19th century: Cholera decimated the urban population.

Because the etymological sense of one-tenth remains to some extent, decimate is not ordinarily used with exact fractions or percentages: Drought has destroyed (not decimated) nearly 80 percent of the cattle. Dictionary.com Unabridged Examples from the Web for decimate Expand Contemporary Examples A quarter of these headaches might decimate the career of a lesser star or a more timid mogul. Simon Cowell's Troubled Empire Richard Rushfield March 7, 2010 One set of officials advocated for a campaign to decimate ISIS in both countries by striking ISIS targets across Syria. Catherine de' Medici Honore de Balzac Absolute principles create division, and inspire the temptation to decimate, to expel, to kill enemies. British Dictionary definitions for decimate Expand to destroy or kill a large proportion of: a plague decimated the population 2.

(esp in the ancient Roman army) to kill every tenth man of (a mutinous section) Derived Forms decimator, noun Usage note One talks about the whole of something being decimated, not a part: disease decimated the population, not disease decimated most of the population Word Origin C17: from Latin decimāre, from decimus tenth, from decem ten Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012 Word Origin and History for decimate Expand v. c.1600, in reference to the practice of punishing mutinous military units by capital execution of one in every 10, by lot; from Latin decimatus, past participle of decimare (see decimation ). Killing one in ten, chosen by lots, from a rebellious city or a mutinous army was a common punishment in classical times.

The word has been used (incorrectly, to the irritation of pedants) since 1660s for "destroy a large portion of." Related: Decimated; decimating. Online Etymology Dictionary, © 2010 Douglas Harper decimate - definition and meaning decimate from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition transitive v. To destroy or kill a large part of (a group). transitive v. Usage Problem To inflict great destruction or damage on: The fawns decimated my rose bushes. transitive v. Usage Problem To reduce markedly in amount: a profligate heir who decimated his trust fund. transitive v. To select by lot and kill one in every ten of. from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License v. To kill one man chosen by lot out of every ten in a legion or other military group. v. To reduce anything by one in ten, or ten percent. v. To exact a tithe, or tax of 10 percent. v. To reduce to one-tenth. v. To severely reduce; to destroy almost completely. v.

To replace a high-resolution model with one of lower resolution but acceptably similar appearance. from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English transitive v. To take the tenth part of; to tithe. transitive v. To select by lot and punish with death every tenth man of. transitive v. To destroy a considerable part of from The Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia To take the tenth part of or from; tithe. To select by lot and put to death every tenth man of: as, to decimate a captured army or a body of prisoners or mutineers (a barbarity occasionally practised in antiquity). Loosely, to destroy a great but indefinite number or proportion of: as, the inhabitants were decimated by fever; the troops were decimated by the enemy's fire. from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved. v. kill in large numbers v.

kill one in every ten, as of mutineers in Roman armies Etymologies from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition Latin decimāre, decimāt-, to punish every tenth person, from decimus, tenth, from decem, ten; see dekm̥ in Indo-European roots. from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License From Latin decimare "to take the tenth (decimus) part of anything", in particular referring to the levying and payment of tithe and also the practice of capital punishment applied to one man at random (by lot) out of every ten in a legion; compare quintate. Examples I always flinch when I hear someone use the word decimate to mean "wipe out," as in, "The Sioux deci­mated Custer's men." The Original Definition of Decimate | Merriam-Webster Regarding the Incorrect Use of 'Decimate' It's totally fine to use 'decimate' as a synonym for 'devastate'. This is why. The word decimate is what we might delicately refer to as a problem word.

It seems to invite spleen , at least on the part of a small but committed group of linguistic enthusiasts who feel that it is often misused. Here is a sample of comments regarding decimate that have been left by our dictionary’s users. What is going on here? Decimate always meant to reduce something by one tenth. I would prove that point to others using M-W. The definition is now changed to match the incorrect common usage? —User comment, 21 Jan 2014 Why must we change the meaning of a word simply because a large number of people use it incorrectly? There is no reason for the synonyms to be laid out making "decimate" the equivalent of "annihilate". I believe this to be erroneous and in need of correction. —User comment, 19 Feb 2013 Just because people are uneducated and do not know how to speak English and have a limited lexicon, is no reason for intelligent human beings to add misuse of a word as its meaning. —User comment, 31 Jul 2014 People love to complain about 'decimate', but they're wrong.

Our language includes many words which originally had a specific historical meaning, all of which mean something different in English. Lest you think that this is the sort of biased sample that one only finds by scrolling through the comments on a dictionary site, one may find similar feelings expressed on Twitter—including one from someone who appears to have ended a romantic entanglement over the matter. Dear everyone, decimate doesn't mean what you think it means. —Twitter.com, 25 Mar 2016 I don't like how people use the word decimate. It doesn't mean to wipe things out. Words are precise tools, not blunt instruments. —Twitter.com, 24 Dec 2015 #GotDumpedBecause I insisted she learn that 'decimate' means to reduce by 1/10. It's doesn't mean wiped out, Vicky!!

—Twitter.com, 31 Jul 2015 The issue that many people have with the decline and fall of the word decimate is that is once upon a time it had a very singular meaning, a meaning that is in danger of being lost forever to the vandals and barbarian hordes who are manhandling the English language through using this word to mean “to destroy a large number of.” The specific complaint is that decimate had the specific meaning, in ancient Rome, of killing one of every ten soldiers, as a form of military punishment. There are, it must be said, some problems with the argument that this is the only correct meaning today. The first problem is that even if decimate did refer to the practice of killing one of every ten soldiers in Roman times, it did so in the service of Latin, not English. We have many words in English that are descended from Latin but which have changed their meaning in their travels. We no longer think of sinister as meaning “on the left side,” even though that was one of the word’s meanings when it existed in Latin. Another problem with insisting that decimate should have but a single meaning is that very few words in English retain but a single meaning.

An enormous percentage of the items in our vocabulary are capable of semantic multitasking. When a person uses a tricky word such as when , a , person , use , tricky , or word , all of which have multiple meanings, we use context to understand the speaker’s intent. Was the sense meaning “to select by lot and kill every tenth man of” the original use of decimate in English? Yes, it was, but not by much. Our earliest record of this meaning is from the end of the 16th century; by the beginning of the 17th century the word had already taken on an additional meaning (“to tithe”). Furthermore, the word decimation , meaning “a tithing,” had been in use for about 60 years before decimate began to be used in any fashion. Perhaps you are one of those true stalwarts who will refuse to be swayed by any argument in this regard, and have resolved not only to continue to use decimate in this way but also to tell those who do not that they are wrong. In that case you deserve applause and support. Come to think of it, you deserve more than that—you deserve an ovation .

Except that the original meaning of ovation in English was “a ceremony attending the entering of Rome by a general who had won a victory of less importance than that for which a triumph was granted,” so I guess we can’t use that word. No matter, we can say that if you stick to your guns you will surely have a triumph . Wait—the first meaning of triumph was “a ceremony attending the entering of Rome by a general who had won a decisive victory over a foreign enemy,” so let’s not use that. As it turns out, decimate is hardly the only word in English that once had a precise single meaning dealing with Roman history; it just is the only one that people like to complain about.

For those who truly believe that words which started out in English having a single meaning that pertains to ancient Rome should remain that way forever, the following list of such will come in handy: Century : “a subdivision of the Roman legion.” Forum : “the marketplace or public place of an ancient Roman city forming the center of judicial and public business.” Tribune : “a Roman official under the monarchy and the republic with the function of protecting the plebeian citizen from arbitrary action by the patrician magistrates.” Missiles: “Gifts thrown to the crowds by Roman emperors.” Actor: “In Roman law, one that conducts a legal action.” Legion : “the principal unit of the Roman army comprising 3000 to 6000 foot soldiers with cavalry.” Hope that helps. Secretary - The Secret History of "Secretary" | Merriam-Webster The Secret History of "Secretary" 10 Words That Used to Mean Something Different sweetheart, darling - used of either sex Example: "I kiss his dirty shoe, and from heart-string I love the lovely bully.

What is thy name?" - William Shakespeare, Henry V, 1600 About the Word: The meaning of bully has been changing for almost five hundred years now, with the earliest evidence of the word dating back to the 1530s. Along the path from heartthrob to harasser bully has also meant 'a man of outstanding physical powers,' 'a hired ruffian,' 'the boss of a logging camp,' 'any of several blennioid fishes,' and numerous other things. -Ammon Shea marked by obedience Example: "[We] adore and worship thy majesty, and tremble at thy judgments and works, and therefore pray always that we may content with thy will, and be buxom and obedient thereto." - Henry Bull, Christian Prayers and Meditations, 1566 About the Word: Buxom is thought to have come from the Old English word bŪhsum, which shares a common ancestor with the Old English word bŪgan (meaning 'to bend').

In addition to its current primary meaning of 'full-bosomed,' buxom has at times in the past been used with such varied meanings as 'physically flexible' and 'full of gaiety.' 2/10 to remove from office Example: "And under this power are comprehended all the other rights and marks of soveraigntie ... to proclaime warre, or to make peace: to take knowledge in the last appeale of the iudgments of all Magistrates: to appoint or to disappoint the greatest officers ..." - Pierre de la Primaudaye (Translated by T. Bowes), The French Academy, 1586 About the Word: It seems as though such a word should be quite simple; if you appoint a person to some position you can also disappoint them from it. Yet the English language does not always work in a way that makes sense. Not only do words change meaning, but some of our prefixes do not always mean the same thing. For instance, dis- can mean 'do the opposite of,' as in disqualify, and also can mean 'completely' as in disannul .

It would certainly be pleasant if we could immediately disappoint those who disappoint us, but we generally have to wait for an election to do this. 3/10 to break wind quietly Example: "But the false old trot did so fizzle and fist, that she stunk like a hundred devils, which put the poor fox to a great deal of ill ease, for he knew not to what side to turn himself, to escape the unsavoury perfume of this old womans postern blasts." - François Rabelais (translated by Thomas Urquhart), Gargantua and Pantagruel, 1534 About the Word: If you are in search of an accurate euphemism for a certain four-letter word, beginning with F, that designates an expulsive bodily function, look no further than fizzle. For the first several hundred years that this word was in use as a verb in English (since 1533) it only referred to the act of passing wind silently. Fizzle did not begin to refer to making a sputtering sound until the 19th century, at which point the older meaning had, well, fizzled out.

4/10 the internal parts of an animal: viscera Example: "Take white Pigeons, and fatten them with Pyneapple kernelles, the space of xv daies, and than kil them: and having cast away the head, the feete, and the guttes, with all the garbage, distill them in a limbecke ..." - Girolamo Ruscelli (translated by W. Warde), The Secretes of the Reverende Maister Alexis of Piemount, 1558 About the Word: Garbage is hardly the only food-related word to have taken on a meaning that is far afield from what it once was. Meat formerly was used to refer to food of any kind, and not just to the flesh of an animal. Also liquor was once used to refer to liquid of any sort, rather than to a substance that is productive of hangovers. 5/10 lechery, lust Example: "What?

shall we live like beasts promiscuously, Without distinction in foule luxurie?" - Juvenal (Translated by William Barkstead), That Which Seemes Best is Worst, 1617 About the Word: The current meaning of luxury carries a far more positive connotation today than it did when it first entered the language (a process that linguists refer to as amelioration). Luxurious likewise had a more negative meaning when it first entered the language ('of, relating to, or expressive of especially unrestrained gratification of the senses'). However luxuriant originally meant 'productive,' and luxuriate once meant 'to grow profusely'. 6/10 Ovation Original Definition: a ceremony attending the entering of Rome by a general who had won a victory of less importance than that for which a triumph was granted Example: "In ancient Rome an ovation was an inferior triumph accorded to victors in minor war or unimportant battle....

An enthusiastic demonstration in honor of an American civilian is nothing like that, and should not be called by its name." - Ambrose Bierce, Write It Right, 1909 About the Word: Some people are of the opinion that the word decimate should properly only be used to refer to a punishment or event in which every tenth person is killed, since that is how the word was used by the ancient Romans. Strangely enough, very few of these people likewise insist that ovation should be held to the same standard. And there are other English words that are descended from Latin words of greatly different meaning: century once referred to 'a subdivision of the Roman legion,' and libertine in ancient Rome was used to refer to a freed slave.

7/10 democracy as a principle or a form of government Example: "For conceiving that the Prince my Father had usurped an Authority which did not belong unto him, and desiring to reduce the Government into a Popularity, and to prevent his Successors from raigning after him, see how they argued the matter amongst themselves." - Madeleine de Scudéry (translated by F.G.), Artamenes, 1653 About the Word: While the more cynical among us might argue that our current system of government is still largely based on popularity, it is a popularity that is a bit different from the original meaning of the word. Popularity has been in use since at least 1546, the year in which the Bishop of Winchester used it in a letter to Lord Paget, writing of 'an inclination they have to a popularity'. The letter is concerned with grave political matters of the time, and not with who is the most liked in the schoolyard. 8/10 of, relating to, or marked by illusion, conjuring, or trickery Example: "That strumpet, that inchantresse, ...

has stolne faire Truths attire, Her crowne, her sweet songs, counterfets her voyce, And by prestigious tricks in sorcerie, Ha's raiz'd a base impostor like Truths father." - Thomas Dekker, The Whore of Babylon, 1607 About the Word: Prestigious and prestige both come to English from the Latin word praestigiae, which meant 'conjuror's tricks.' It's not so difficult to see the connection there when bearing in mind that the word prestidigitation ('sleight of hand') has largely retained its original meaning. Prestigious did not come to convey renown until the beginning of the 20th century.

9/10 one entrusted with the secrets or confidences of a superior Example: "She writ to him discreetly the thoughts of her friend, leting him understand that she was the secretary; that she would serve him in all honest things he could desire." - Francisco de Quintana, The History of Don Fenise, 1651 About the Word: Many other words that have been formed through the addition of -ary (which comes from the Latin root -arius, meaning 'from') have managed to keep their roots and suffixes neatly tied together: beneficiary , constabulary , and planetary . So it seems rather obvious, when looking at a word such as secretary, that its original meaning had something to do with secrets. Yet somewhere along the way the word slipped free of its moorings and took on a not terribly secret meaning. 10/10 10 Words That Don’t Mean What You May Think They Do 10 Words That Don’t Mean What You May Think They Do By Mark Nichol As English evolves, word meanings shift and turn, sometimes reversing themselves altogether. These ten words have shifted their senses over the years.

In some cases, we are wise to likewise be flexible; in others, we relax our vocabulary at the expense of useful distinctions: 1. Decimate The literal meaning of this word, as all you lovers of Latin (not to be confused with Latin lovers) know all too well, is “to reduce by one-tenth,” supposedly from the punitive custom of selecting one out of ten captives by lot and killing those so selected. But the senses for this rhadamanthine Roman policy have proliferated, so that now it means “tithed,” “drastically reduced,” or “destroyed” as well. 2. Disinterested Commonly employed to mean “not interested,” disinterested has a precise, useful meaning of “neutral, unbiased.” 3. Enormity Some people would reserve this word to mean “monstrously wicked,” but, in truth, it is properly invoked to refer to anything overwhelming or an unexpected event of great magnitude, and thus it need not be invariably corrected to enormousness except when it is clearly in reference to a loathsome occurrence.

Refrain, however, from diluting the word’s impact in such usage as “The enormity of the new stadium struck them as they approached the towering entrance.” 4. Fortuitous This word means “occurring by chance,” but its resemblance to fortune has given it an adopted sense of “lucky.” For meticulous adherence to the traditional meaning, use fortuitous only in the sense indicated in this sentence: “His arrival at that moment was fortuitous, because her note had not specified the exact time of her departure.” Nothing in the context qualifies his arrival as fortunate; the sentence merely states that he arrived in time without knowing that he would do so. The informal meaning is expressed here: “His fortuitous arrival at that very moment enabled him to intercept the incriminating letter.” In this sentence, the time of his appearance is identified as a lucky stroke. 5.

Fulsome This term originally meant “abundant, generous, full,” but that sense was rendered obsolete when the word acquired a negative connotation of “offensive, excessive, effusive.” Conservative descriptivists rail against the use of fulsome in a positive sense, but the cold, hard fact is that this sense has been increasingly resurgent for many years, and the adulatory meaning is now much more common than the condemnatory one. If you wish to stand fast before the tsunami of inevitability, be my guest, but fulsome as an exquisite insult has been consigned to the dustbin of history. Some commentators recommend that because of the word’s ambiguity, it’s best to avoid its use altogether. If you insist, make sure the context is clear. 6. Ironic The impact of ironic has been diluted because many people use it to mean “coincidental,” when its traditional definition is “counter to expectations or what is appropriate.” 7. Literally Some folks get exercised when this term is used in place of its antonym, figuratively. However, in a hyperbolic sense, that meaning is justified. Unfortunately, that sense is literally overused. 8.

Notorious This term is occasionally used in a neutral sense, but that’s not an error, but the word literally means “known.” However, its dominant connotation is that the fame is a result of infamy. 9. Peruse This victim of definition reversal literally means “to use thoroughly,” and its first sense is that of careful steady or attentive reading. However, many writers (myself included) have employed it as a synonym for scan — enough writers, as a matter of fact, that its second sense is “to look over or through in a casual or cursory manner.” Unfortunately, these mirror meanings mean that if you use the word, I advise you to support it with context that clarifies the intended sense. 10. Plethora Plethora originally referred to an excess of something, but that usage is rare now, and more often the sense is simply of abundance. The medical meaning of swelling caused by an excess of blood is all but unknown. Subscribe to Receive our Articles and Exercises via Email You will improve your English in only 5 minutes per day, guaranteed! Subscribers get access to our exercise archives, writing courses, writing jobs and much more! You'll also get three bonus ebooks completely free!

51 Responses to “10 Words That Don’t Mean What You May Think They Do” TJ on May 10, 2011 1:01 am Seems you’ve used “scan” in place of “skim.” Walter Smith on May 10, 2011 9:39 am A word that I commonly hear my friend’s and colleagues use to describe being drunk, belligerent, means to be hostile or warlike. It certainly makes me belligerent to hear them use it in such a manner. Jamaipanese on May 10, 2011 12:22 pm I can literally feel my vocabulary expanding… Nelida K. on May 10, 2011 1:11 pm Hi Maeve, Splendid post, as usual. However, I believe that under item 8. there is one “but” in excess. Perhaps the second one could be replaced by “as” or “because”? shirley in berkeley on May 10, 2011 2:11 pm Shall we talk about “reticent” and “reluctant”?

It drives me nuts that people say “reticent” when they mean “reluctant.” RETICENT ( adj.): 1. Inclined to keep one’s thoughts, feelings, and personal affairs to oneself. See Synonyms at silent. 2. Restrained or reserved in style. RELUCTANT (adj.): Unwilling; disinclined: reluctant to help. Exhibiting or marked by unwillingness: a reluctant smile. Offering resistance; opposing. One may be reluctant to speak, but not reticent to speak (redundant), and no one was ever reticent to play football. Terry A McNeil on May 10, 2011 3:45 pm In short, this post in my view touches on one of the most important concerns of language and communication. Indeed I believe it has an enormous impact in all areas of human concern. This is because the meaning of words literally lends itself to endless discussions and constructs. For example, how many meanings might the words economics or home have beyond their respective dictionary entries. The idea that there are millions of picture meanings resting in our individual minds for each of these words is a valid view in my experience.

Making it easy to understand why we do not often see eye to eye. Explaining also why life is often a wonderful conflicting conundrum and more. Terry TIME…For our Best Deeds and Words. Catherine on May 10, 2011 4:19 pm My pet-peeve-diluted-word is “anxious”. It used to mean “fearful” and was similar to a feeling of dread. Its root is, after all, “anxiety”! But today “anxious” can also mean “eager” as in: “I’m anxious for Christmas morning to finally arrive!” So, I always ask what about Christmas morning produces a sense of dread to make the speaker fearful. (I can’t help it!) Maeve Steve Vaudrey on May 11, 2011 12:42 am Another word for the list might be “myriad.” Meaning 10,000, it is comonly used to describe a very large or indefinite number. Andy Knoedler on May 11, 2011 4:37 am Might I add the misuse of “bemused”?

Some writers think it’s a synonym of amused, whereas it really means confused. Peter on May 11, 2011 10:20 am Do you read xkcd, Mark? Regarding “literally”: (be sure to read the popup text that appears when you hover your mouse over the picture, too…) Mark Nichol on May 11, 2011 2:05 pm Peter: Thanks for the tip about xkcd — I’d never known about it before. I figuratively fell out of my seat! kls on May 11, 2011 2:31 pm Reluctant/reticent Shirley in Berkeley, I’m with you in Minnesota! I’m not reluctant to be anything but reticent about the misuse of those words. Another annoyance is “o-MAHJ.” What an affectation! Good, old “HOM-aj” works just fine. Someday somebody will say, “I’m not reticent to pay him o-MAHJ” and I will go stark raving.

JMN on May 11, 2011 3:16 pm I think the word nonplussed should make the next list. I don’t have anything more to say about it. venqax on May 11, 2011 4:10 pm Excellent and timley topic. A few mis-mots I hear all the time: The guy behind the mirrors in the meat section of the supermarket is not a butcher. He is a meat-cutter. Nothing is being slaughtered back there, we hope. Someone who shoes horses nowadays is not necessarily, or even probably, a blacksmith. Someone who makes iron things, like frying pans, fireplace pokers, and maybe horse shoes is. A farrier takes care of horsey foot-things more generally. A chef (French of “chief”) is a master of culinary arts who oversees (hence chief) cooks and food preparers. Just having the funny hat, or even getting paid for what you cook-up doesn’t get you that title. An authority on snakes is a herpetologist, but so is an expert on tuataras. A snake expert is, more precisely, an ophiologist. Best to say what you mean.

Coroners don’t cut up dead bodies. Medicals examiners (ME’s) do. ME’s are physicians, tho their connection to the healing arts is indirect. A coroner is a legal official who certifies that someone is, indeed, officially and completely dead and why (usually with the ME’s advice). No one is a linguist simply because they speak a lot of languages. They may be a polyglot. A linguist, as many on here, is someone who practices the science of linguistics and uses those funny IPA symbols and using words like alveolar, fricative, epiglottal and obstruents. You don’t need to actually speak different languages to do that, but it helps. You don’t have to know that stuff to speak different languages. It might even be an impediment. Laurie on May 11, 2011 5:54 pm I can pretty much guarantee that “voluptuous” does not mean what you think it does. Go ahead! Look it up!! Grace on May 12, 2011 8:42 am I’d like to plead for ‘enormity’.

According to my OED (admittedly the 1983 edition) ‘Excess in magnitude’ is ‘an incorrect use’. The correct uses? ‘1. Deviation from a normal standard or type; esp. from moral or legal rectitude. In later use: Monstrous wickedness. 2. That which is abnormal; an irregularity; a crime; in later use, a monstrous offence. Maybe a newer edition of the OED has overridden those ‘later uses’, and accepted largeness of size to be the new ‘later use’; and yes, of course language changes and grows… but this time it is shrinking. Both enormity and enormous started out meaning ‘abnormal’ – (ex+norma – outside+pattern). ‘Enormous’ came to be applied only to size – to hugeness. My plea to writers is to keep the distinction of ‘enormity’ and not permit it to become a synonym of enormous. There are many words to express the vast scale, the huge magnitude of big stuff.

But there are few enough words left that can adequately convey the monstrous evil of some of the things that go on in the world today, an observation I remember being made by journalists after 9/11, when words like ‘terrible’, ‘tragedy’, ‘horror’ and ‘disaster’ seemed too banal. Cecily on May 12, 2011 10:20 am A familiar list of words, but I’m more intrigued by the title of the post, and specifically the present tense. Yes, originally “decimate” meant to destroy one tenth, but if 95% of native English speakers think it refers to widespread destruction, in what sense can we say it “means” (rather than “meant”) one tenth? On that basis, we would also say that “nice pedant” means “stupid schoolmaster” (for that is what those words used to mean) and rejig the calendar so that September, October, November and December become the seventh, eighth, ninth and tenth months. Regardless of our nostalgia, etymology alone, fascinating as it is, is not a reliable guide to current meanings.

venqax on May 12, 2011 3:09 pm Excellent and timely topic. A few mis-mots I hear all the time: The guy behind the mirrors in the meat section of the supermarket is not a butcher. He is a meat-cutter. Nothing is being slaughtered back there, we hope. Someone who shoes horses nowadays is not necessarily, or even probably, a blacksmith. Someone who makes iron things, like frying pans, fireplace pokers, and maybe horse shoes is. A farrier takes care of horsey foot-things more generally. A chef (French of “chief”) is a master of culinary arts who oversees (hence chief) cooks and food preparers. Just having the funny hat, or even getting paid for what you cook-up doesn’t get you that title. An authority on snakes is a herpetologist, but so is an expert on tuataras. A snake expert is, more precisely, an ophiologist. Best to say what you mean. Coroners don’t cut up dead bodies. Medicals examiners (ME’s) do. They are physicians, tho their connection to the healing arts is indirect.

A coroner is a legal official who certifies that someone is, indeed, officially and completely dead and why (usually with the ME’s advice). No one is a linguist simply because they speak a lot of languages. They may be a polyglot. A linguist, as some on here, is someone who practices the science of linguistics and who uses those funny IPA symbols and words like alveolar, fricative, epiglottal and obstruents. You don’t need to actually speak different languages to do that, but it helps. And, you don’t have to know that stuff to speak different languages. It might even be an impediment. Gaby on May 13, 2011 7:54 am The members of my book club have a long-running debate about the meaning of “enormity” and this post caused great controversy. I’m going to post the contribution of one of our members who quotes a couple of sources to demonstrate that the correct use of enormity is indeed to mean monstrous wickedness rather than great size: “OED lists the use of enormity to mean size as obsolete: Excess in magnitude; hugeness, vastness.

Obs.; recent examples might perh. be found, but the use is now regarded as incorrect. (Oxford English Dictionary) My original source was Elements of Style (Strunk and White). They maintain in their section on misused words and expressions that enormity is “misleading, if not wrong, when used to express bigness.” According to them enormity should be used “only in the sense ‘monstrous wickedness’.” shilrey in berkeley on May 13, 2011 11:55 am Thinking about the claims that “correct” usage of language is snobbish, defending incorrect usage and pronunciation fails to honor the elegance of English. The meanings and pronunciation of words change over time, but the language is poorer if we muddle and confuse words because we ignore distinctions between them. There’s a delicious feel in the mouth and a pleasurable sound to the ear when words are pronounced with elegance and style. Consider the difference between “museum” (three syllables) and “muzeem” (two).

And how about aesthetic (say that “th”) shilrey in berkeley on May 13, 2011 12:01 pm What I was about to say before I was interrupted by touchy Mac mouse ……… And how about “aesthetic”? Please do keep that “th”! Definitely unaesthetic to change the “th” to a double “t.” shilrey in berkeley on May 13, 2011 3:43 pm Hi, Moderator — Nothing like misspelling your own name. I’m shirley in berkeley, not shilrey!! (and very red in the face!). venqax on May 15, 2011 5:07 pm Excellent and timely topic. A few mis-mots I hear all the time: The guy behind the mirrors in the meat section of the supermarket is not a butcher. He is a meat-cutter. Nothing is being slaughtered back there, we hope. Someone who shoes horses nowadays is not necessarily, or even probably, a blacksmith. Someone who makes iron things, like frying pans, fireplace pokers, and maybe horse shoes is.

A farrier takes care of horsey foot-things more generally. A chef (French of “chief”) is a master of culinary arts who oversees (hence chief) cooks and food preparers. Just having the funny hat, or even getting paid for what you cook-up doesn’t get you that title. An authority on snakes is a herpetologist, but so is an expert on tuataras. A snake expert is, more precisely, an ophiologist. Best to say what you mean. Coroners don’t cut up dead bodies. Medicals examiners (ME’s) do. They are physicians, tho their connection to the healing arts is indirect. A coroner is a legal official who certifies that someone is, indeed, officially and completely dead and why (usually with the ME’s advice). No one is a linguist simply because they speak a lot of languages. They may be a polyglot. A linguist, as many on here, is someone who practices the science of linguistics and uses those funny IPA symbols and using words like alveolar, fricative, epiglottal and obstruents. You don’t need to actually speak different languages to do that, but it helps.

You don’t have to know that stuff to speak different languages. It might even be an impediment. venqax on May 16, 2011 10:07 pm Apologies for the double post. @ Cecily, I think the point is that these are words that are currently being misused and that failure to preserve their now-proper distinct, discrete and unique meanings out of nothing but deaf ignorance, denigrates the language and should be argued against. Decimate means to reduce by a tenth No other word means that. None. That is worth preserving. OTOH we have a whole bag of muddier words that mean destroy, reduce, etc. That is certainly worth pointing out to the erudite who at least care about things like language, culture, etc. Mob-rule and ignorance govern plenty, and always will. No need to sing their praises. There will always be those who pound nails with shoes, the flats of wrenches and the knob ends of screwdrivers because they are too lazy to go get a hammer. So, get rid of hammers?

Cecily on May 17, 2011 5:39 am Venqax, I agree the original meaning of “decimate” is a loss (even though I struggle to think of many occasions where I need it), but almost everyone uses the word with the newer meaning; the battle was lost long ago. I don’t sing the praises of mob rule, as you put it, but I am a realist. Imam Baksh on May 19, 2011 12:14 am IRONICALLY, I think you misused ‘scan’ in your section on peruse. I understand that we have given in to the ‘tsunami’ on this one and it generally is taken to mean, casually look, but it once meant to take a detailed and systematic look. It still does, which is why we talk about CAT scans in medicine. or scan the horizon in military lore. mg on May 19, 2011 5:34 pm A whole lot of confusion here (in the comments, especially) about how language works and where it comes from.

Anyway, the nice thing about prescriptive crap like this is how easy it is to take down a notch. Here are the dates of the first uses of each of these words for their ‘incorrect’ meanings, according to the OED: Decimate: 1663 Disinterested: 1767 Enormity: 1792 (OED notes “recent examples might perh. be found, but the use is now regarded as incorrect,” due, of course, to people like you.) Fortuitous: [not regarded by the OED as a separate sense] Fulsome: The discussion here seems accurate. Not sure what the hell a “conservative descriptivist” is, since that’s a contradiction of terms; your blog post is the top hit for “conservative descriptivist” on Google. You seem confused about what a “descriptivist” is, perhaps. Ironic: No argument here. Literally: No argument here. Notorious: neutral use: 1495; negative use: 1549. Perusal: OED note: “Modern dictionaries and usage guides, perh.

influenced by the word’s earlier history in English, have sometimes claimed that the only ‘correct’ usage is in reference to reading closely or thoroughly (cf. senses 4a, 4b). However, peruse has been a broad synonym for read since the 16th cent., encompassing both careful and cursory reading; Johnson defined and used it as such. The implication of leisureliness, cursoriness, or haste is therefore not a recent development, although it is usually found in less formal contexts and is less frequent in earlier use (see quot. 1589 for an early example). The specific sense of browsing or skimming emerged relatively recently, generally in ironic or humorous inversion of the formal sense of thoroughness. Cf. scan v. for a similar development and range of senses. Plethora: ~1868 (it is difficult to figure out exactly from the limited context given from OED examples). Chris on May 30, 2011 4:12 am Most of the time when I see someone say “Wow, that’s ironic,” I think “Wow, not it’s not.” It’s becoming worse than people misusing then/than.

jessiethought on June 18, 2011 6:54 pm Knew disinterested. Not decimate or fortuitous. Now I can better understand the usage of “fortuitous” in the Odyssey and such works. venqax on June 27, 2011 4:53 pm @mg: Yes, I would say confusion. What, exactly, are we supposed to infer from your list? That if a mistake is old, it’s not a mistake? That there is no useful reason to distinguish between different words that may have been used to mean the same thing—most likely by people who didn’t know any better? That with English, any prescription is merely pedantry? So it is somehow good and proper that fortuitous means the same thing as fortunate? There is no distinction between uninterested and disinterested? Enormity means enormousness because it sounds like it does? Notorious is the same as famous because we don’t need a word that makes the distinction intended by that prescriptive distinction? Your own bewilderment at the “contradiction in terms” of a “conservative descriptivist” testifies to the indefensibility of your position.

How a can anything be a contradiction in terms if terms don’t have any definite meaning? Doesn’t the fact that Google—the final arbiter of all things descriptive—pulls up the term and identifies it with this blog in fact MAKE this blog “conservative descriptivist”, ipso facto, in your realm? Then you proceed to stamp with approval the taggings of misuse on ironic and literally. Why? They’ve certainly been used to mean what they don’t mean a lot and for a long time. Why don’t they get excused as stand-ins? Something has certainly been taken down a notch. Clarity and consistency for a pair. What is different today from the 1600s and before is that there is a large, literate class who DO take care with the language and who seek— in their best efforts—to manage its development somewhat. Likewise the geneticists who aren’t going to leave us to natural evolution any longer, if they can help it. When the literate do this among themselves, it does have some trickle-down imprint and it can be done beneficently, not just pedantically.

For example, when there is a benefit to communication in 2 words meaning 2 things, instead of 2 or more superficially similar words meaning the same thing— a redundancy that serves no purpose at all. Or when there actually is a common rule of spelling or pronunciation that, if only taught and known, would remove much confusion. Not all rules are simply oppression or snobbishness These are good things for English. Bob on September 11, 2011 1:22 am @venqax – I think you missed the point of ag’s ( admittedly acerbic) post. If a misuse is as old as Shakespeare and Samuel Johnson, and it has been used by reasonably educated people for over a couple centuries, we may need to reconsider our definition of “misuse.” What you do not acknowledge is that quite a few of your “distinctions” were of little importance historically to most writers of English (even well-educated ones) until certain movements, in particular the classics revival of the late nineteenth century, suddenly decided to try to retrofit modern English into dead languages (particularly Latin and Greek).

That doesn’t mean that these Classicists were “wrong,” but it does mean that they made up distinctions between “correct” and “incorrect” usage where there often was none or even where their “correct” usage went against already established trends. I used to think like you, and there is some part of me that still winces at supposedly “incorrect” usages. But in many of the cases you bring up here, the battle wasn’t lost long ago… There actually never was a “battle” until people like you started making up arbitrary rules. You may think they aren’t arbitrary, but why exactly is the first usage in English more correct, even when it has coexisted with another use for most of it’s lifespan in English? Why is a usage based on a dead language considered correct, even if it goes against the use of almost all speakers and many good writers of the language the word is actually part of? (“Decimate” is not Latin. It isn’t “decimatio” and we need to consider 400 years of English usage before necessarily yielding to the authority of some dead usage in a dead language.) I’m not saying you’re wrong.

I’m not saying your arguments about reducing redundancy or clarity in language aren’t noble, but the idea that they are based in some authoritative “correct” or “original” or even “lost” usage is misguided based on the same historical record you seek to draw from… At least in many instances. That’s the important point from the previous commenter. You can be prescriptivist all you want, but take care to note when your decisions are based on actual historical English usage versus some imagined Garden of Eden where no one split infinitives and everyone always used the subjunctive correctly. Bob on September 11, 2011 1:26 am By the way… Apologies for a typo of it’s for its. The damn phone I just started using corrects “its” to “it’s” by default, and I couldn’t scrollback to proofread before submitting. venqax on September 24, 2011 7:59 pm Bob, your point is well taken, but you are assuming I am making more assertions that I am. I am not suggesting that Will or SJohnson misused the words in question.

I’m merely saying that the fact that the words could be used in that sense THEN does nothing to justify that use for them now. It is, in fact, ag who appealing to age and hisory as an overwhelming source of legitimacy. True, the distinction may not have important historically, and so were not made But they have BECOME important since then, and very useful. Regardless of whence the distinctions came between, say, uninterested and disinterested, they are useful distinctions now and should be observed by careful and conscientious, and certainly by professional, writers for that reason alone. The “wrongness” of their confusion that the anarachist ag was responding to was not simply invented by the author the post. It reflects a strong consensus that has developed among various “language people” for good reasons. We can say, for all intents and purposes, when reformers—including classicists—were right and when they were wrong. They were wrong when their reforms did nothing to aid communication, such as asserting pseudo-proper spellings with silent letters onto straightforward phonetic spellings in English, due to some completely unfounded notion that Latin spelling conventions were somehow relevant, let alone preferable, to English ones.

Likewise imposing Latin grammar rules on English for no defensible reason. They were right when the distinctions they made improved clarity and precision. I am not saying decimate should really only mean “reduced by a tenth”, but I am saying it is good and proper to say to decimate does not mean to annihilate or to destroy totally. It means to destroy relatively little of something. THAT is a very valuable distinction. Not all prescription needs to even claim that it is based in history, merely that it is a “best use” can be sufficient. venqax on September 25, 2011 4:10 pm and I’ve no idea why these posts keeping coming out italics. waitaminute on October 01, 2011 5:14 pm The way most people use word #6 on this list is ironic, wouldn’t you say? venqax on October 10, 2011 6:00 pm waitaminute: Only if they are talking about grammar, or the meaning of irony. Otherwise it’s just plain wrong (usually). Your comment may well be ironic, tho, given all that.

Betti on January 04, 2012 11:32 am I have just realised that I may have done someone an injustice… He had offered to act as a writing mentor, but in reply to my first email to him he said “Thank you for your fulsome email…” I looked up the word ‘fulsome’ in my (clearly too old) dictionary as I wasn’t entirely sure of its meaning. As a result I was slightly wary of him and his opinion of me henceforth, thinking that his remark had been a backhanded criticism, when – I now realise – it was probably no such thing. Things never quite worked out between us and we are no longer in contact. 😮 Stuart on February 10, 2012 12:00 pm “Conservative descriptivists rail ” Surely you mean “prescriptivists”? Descriptivists — which include most modern linguists — describe English as it is; prescriptivists prescribe how they believe it ought to be. Please try to avoid what is known as the “etymological fallacy”. The literal meaning of a word in Latin is not the literal meaning of that same word as used in modern English.

Brimshack on March 21, 2012 11:01 pm Number 1 would appear to be an etymological fallacy. As to the others, there is simply a point at which the common usage becomes the new meaning. Simply put, if enough people think a word has a certain meaning, then it does. David Moberg on April 11, 2012 3:03 pm The worst “drift” of meaning of a word, in my opinion, is the way the word “apocalypse” is used today to mean “the end of the world” or “absolute destruction”. The original, and correct meaning was from the Greek “apokálypsis”, which would translate to: “revelation”. Stephen Winbaum on April 16, 2012 4:58 pm ZEN is a monastic order of Buddhism exported by Dogen from China to Japan. Its central practice revolves around hours of meditation (Zazen), begging for alms, and contemplation of puzzling questions (Koans). The final transcendent state is called Satori. Now Zen is primarily a marketing term to describe a state of ease.

Shama Hyder Kabani’s “the zen of social media marketing” is the latest adaptation. I guess I need to be a little more Zen about it. Riccardo on April 18, 2012 7:39 pm Before it started being used almost exclusively to refer to Nazi genocide, “holocaust” could mean an extreme conflagration. Before traffic reporters suggesting alternative routes began misusing and redefining it, “alternate” meant either “every other” (adjective) or “occurring in turn repeatedly” (verb). Before ignorant show-offs thought it was a highfalutin encomium, “penultimate” only meant “next to last.” venqax on April 23, 2012 1:39 am And gay used to just mean happy or carefree. The only way to stop perfectly good words from being pirated is to refuse to play along, and do everything you CAN, which may not be much, to block others from abusing their priviliges of language.

Kavafy on May 04, 2012 10:38 am “I’m merely saying that the fact that the words could be used in that sense THEN does nothing to justify that use for them now.” So what WOULD justify their use now? It seems to me that, in the absence of popular consensus, these distinctions amount to little more than personal preference. venqax on May 04, 2012 10:36 pm So what WOULD justify their use now? The way they are used now, obviously. The fact that Shakespeare,e.g., used a word to mean something “then” doesn’t mean that it works anymore. Nice no longer means stupid and foolish, and no one thinks it does. Apple does not mean any kind of fruit in general anymore. And no one uses it that way. Of course you can exercise your personal preference and ask for an apple when you want an orange or a peach. Or in a stern tone tell someone his idiotic behavior is very nice. But it probably won’t work out that well for you. tems on October 16, 2012 4:09 am How about the word “though” ?

Did it evolve to another meaning? Here’s a couple of sentences that a friend got from a book (I don’t know exactly which book): “People refer to the study of animals as zoology. As they work THOUGH, zoologists take many different approaches to studying animals.” and “People visiting lakes can typically see frogs, toads, turtles, lizards and even snakes. These animals are not identical THOUGH, as biologists have classified them separately.” It seems that the word “though” here is not used to oppose two ideas, as it is defined in dictionaries. venqax on November 29, 2012 3:28 pm tems: in the second example I think the definition of though (although) as “despite the fact” is being expanded to “despite what you might think”. E.g. “I’m leaving now”, she said. “You’re not finished, though”, he replied. That is informal or colloquial and probably hasn’t been recorded in all dictionaries. In the first case, the word though is simply misused as it doesn’t contrast anything at all, as you pointed out.

There is no comparison implied by the facts that the field is called zoology and its practitioners operate in a variety of ways. db on December 17, 2013 6:47 pm What I love about English as a language is that by its very nature the words are malleable. While I can appreciate any opportunity taken to express some sense of superiority over people “misusing” the language, I think we should stick to the grammatical foibles as opposed to constraining the definitions of words. Of course that just may be because I have a habit of becoming super excited when I can stretch the meaning of a word in an unobvious direction. Although I think it is more a situation of the limitations of the language itself. There are foreign words that describe things where there are no English equivalents. It is within these gaps where we must ply our cultural slang into new ways of expressing ourselves. Eventually the definitions will change, and even words that are not part of the “accepted” vernacular make it into the dictionary. While I enjoyed the read, the argument is moot.

Decimation - definition of decimation by The Free Dictionary Decimation - definition of decimation by The Free Dictionary Also found in: Thesaurus , Legal , Wikipedia . dec·i·mate tr.v. dec·i·mat·ed, dec·i·mat·ing, dec·i·mates 1. To destroy or kill a large part of (a group of people or organisms). 2. Usage Problem a. To inflict great destruction or damage on: The storm decimated the region. b. To reduce markedly in amount: a profligate heir who decimated his trust fund. 3. To select by lot and kill one in every ten of (a group of soldiers). [Latin decimāre, decimāt-, to punish every tenth person, from decimus, tenth, from decem, ten; see dekm̥ in the Appendix of Indo-European roots.] dec′i·ma′tion n. Usage Note: Decimate originally referred to the killing of every tenth person, a punishment used in the Roman army for mutinous legions. Today this meaning is commonly extended to include the killing of any large proportion of a population.

In our 2005 survey, 81 percent of the Usage Panel accepts this extension in the sentence The Jewish population of Germany was decimated by the war, even though it is common knowledge that the number of Jews killed was much greater than a tenth of the original population. This is an increase from the 66 percent who accepted this sentence in our 1988 survey. However, the Panel is less accepting of usages that extend the meaning to include large-scale destruction other than killing, as in The supply of fresh produce was decimated by the nuclear accident at Chernobyl. Some 36 percent accepted this sentence in 2005, up from 26 percent in 1988, but still a decided minority. ThesaurusAntonymsRelated WordsSynonymsLegend: Noun 1. decimation - destroying or killing a large part of the population (literally every tenth person as chosen by lot) destruction , devastation - the termination of something by causing so much damage to it that it cannot be repaired or no longer exists Translations Decimate - definition of decimate by The Free Dictionary Decimate - definition of decimate by The Free Dictionary Also found in: Thesaurus , Legal , Wikipedia .

dec·i·mate tr.v. dec·i·mat·ed, dec·i·mat·ing, dec·i·mates 1. To destroy or kill a large part of (a group of people or organisms). 2. Usage Problem a. To inflict great destruction or damage on: The storm decimated the region. b. To reduce markedly in amount: a profligate heir who decimated his trust fund. 3. To select by lot and kill one in every ten of (a group of soldiers). [Latin decimāre, decimāt-, to punish every tenth person, from decimus, tenth, from decem, ten; see dekm̥ in the Appendix of Indo-European roots.] dec′i·ma′tion n. Usage Note: Decimate originally referred to the killing of every tenth person, a punishment used in the Roman army for mutinous legions. Today this meaning is commonly extended to include the killing of any large proportion of a population.

In our 2005 survey, 81 percent of the Usage Panel accepts this extension in the sentence The Jewish population of Germany was decimated by the war, even though it is common knowledge that the number of Jews killed was much greater than a tenth of the original population. This is an increase from the 66 percent who accepted this sentence in our 1988 survey. However, the Panel is less accepting of usages that extend the meaning to include large-scale destruction other than killing, as in The supply of fresh produce was decimated by the nuclear accident at Chernobyl. Some 36 percent accepted this sentence in 2005, up from 26 percent in 1988, but still a decided minority. decimate vb (tr) 1. to destroy or kill a large proportion of: a plague decimated the population. 2.

(Military) (esp in the ancient Roman army) to kill every tenth man of (a mutinous section) [C17: from Latin decimāre, from decimus tenth, from decem ten] ˌdeciˈmation n ˈdeciˌmator n Usage: One talks about the whole of something being decimated, not a part: disease decimated the population, not disease decimated most of the population dec•i•mate decimate (ˈdesimeit) verb (of disease, battle etc) to reduce greatly in number. The population was decimated by the plague.

uitdun, afmaai, wegmaai يُهْلِكُ عَددا كَبيرا من покосявам dizimar decimovat, pustošit dezimieren decimere; tynde ud αποδεκατίζω diezmar suuresti vähendama تلفات سنگین وارد کردن؛ لت و پار کردن hävittää décimer לְהָשמִיד חֶלֶק נִיכָּר बड़ी संख्या में मारना decimalna frakcija (meg)tizedel mengurangi fækka stórlega decimare 多数を殺す 많은 사람을 죽이다 smarkiai/dešimt kartų sumažinti masveidā iznīcināt musnah satu persepuluh decimeren tynne ut , redusere sterkt zdziesiątkować لسمه برخه اخيستل يا ايستل، هر لسم سړى و

ژل، لويه برخه ځنى تلف كول dizimar a decima истреблять decimovať zdesetkati desetkovati decimera ลดจำนวนลง kırıp geçirmek, büyük bir kısmını yoketmek 大量毀滅(因疾病或戰爭) косити; пустошити بھاری تخفیف کرنا sát hại nhiều 大批杀死（或毁坏） ˌdeciˈmation noun desimering, uitdunning قَتْل عَدَد كَبيرٍ من покосяване dizimação decimování die Dezimierung decimering; udtynding αποδεκατισμός reducción catastrófica, acción de diezmar suur vähenemine تلفات زیاد hävitys décimation הָשמָדָה שֶׁל הָחֶלֶק הַעִיקָרִי नाश desetkovati megtizedel

és pengurangan stórfellt mannfall decimazione 激減 대량 살해 sumažinimas masveida iznīcināšana pemusnahan ini decimering stort mannefall , desimering zdziesiątkowanie چاودونکی dizimação decimare истребление decimovanie zdesetkanje desetkovanje decimering การลดจำนวนลง imha , katliam 大量毀滅 спустошення بھاری تخفیف sự tiêu hao 大批杀死，大量毁灭 decimate vt.

diezmar.

Question: What word's original meaning was "to remove every tenth one"?
Answer: Decimate