[ˈdɛsɪmeɪt], (Verb)

Definitions:
- kill, destroy, or remove a large proportion of
(e.g: the inhabitants of the country had been decimated)

- kill one in every ten of (a group of people, originally a mutinous Roman legion) as a punishment for the whole group
(e.g: the man who is to determine whether it be necessary to decimate a large body of mutineers)


Phrases:

Origin:
late 16th century: from Latin decimat- ‘taken as a tenth’, from the verb decimare, from decimus ‘tenth’. In Middle English the term decimation denoted the levying of a tithe, and later the tax imposed by Cromwell on the Royalists (1655)