Decimated:
- : to select by lot and kill every tenth man of
decimate a regiment- : to exact a tax of 10 percent from
poor as a decimated Cavalier
— John Dryden- a: to reduce drastically especially in number
cholera decimated the population
Kamieniecki’s return comes at a crucial time for a pitching staff that has been decimated by injuries.
— Jason Diamos
b: to cause great destruction or harm to
firebombs decimated the city
an industry decimated by recession [Merriam-Webster]
Noted in “Christian Tourist Attractions Are Struggling (Even Outside the Pandemic),” Hemant Mehta, Friendly Atheist:
In fact, you’d be hard-pressed to find an attraction that’s doing well (even outside the pandemic). Ark Encounter and the Creation Museum may be the most successful — mostly because of all the money that’s been poured into them — but as we’ve documented on this site, Ark Encounter’s publicly available attendance numbers aren’t terrific… and that’s before the pandemic decimated the place. My favorite line in the piece is the one where Answers in Genesis says the publicly reported attendance numbers on my website don’t tell the full story, but given the chance to prove me wrong, they “declined to provide actual attendance figures.”
My Arts Editor hates, I think, definition #3. It’s so less precise than 1 or 2. And I’ve been hearing various forms of decimate a lot lately, much in line with definition #3. It’s a bit grating.
