decimate

1. (archaic) 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.Examples: "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."; "Said to have been martyred as a Christian legionary commander of late Roman times for having refused an imperial order to kill one in ten (that is, decimate in the Roman meaning of the word) of the soldiers of another legion which had gone into revolt..."; "...where Caesar threatened to disband Legio X after a mutiny. The men begged him to decimate them instead, and Caesar relented in the same way that Titus refrained from executing this cavalryman after his comrades’ appeal."Synonyms: tithearchaic

2. (loosely) To devastate: to reduce or destroy significantly but not completely.Examples: "[England] had decimated itself for a question which involved no principle, and led to no result."; "Um, some sort of power overload. I'm afraid it decimated your breakfast."; "They can be devastating to certain plants if left uncontrolled: a downy mildew of grapes decimated European vineyards during the nineteenth century."broadly

3. (obsolete) To exact a tithe or other 10% tax.Examples: "You forge theſe things prettily; but I have heard you are as poor as a decimated Cavalier [referring to Cromwell's ten per cent. income-tax on Cavaliers], and had not one foot of land in all the vvorld."; "In addition, an ordinance was published that “all who had ever borne arms for the king, or declared themselves to be of the royal party, should be decimated, that is, pay a tenth part of all the estate which they had left, to support the charge which the commonwealth was put to..."obsolete

4. (obsolete, rare) To tithe: to pay a 10% tax.Examples: "[I]t is a deed of higheſt charitie to help undeceive the people, and a vvork vvorthieſt your autoritie, in all things els authors, aſſertors and novv recoverers of our libertie, to deliver us, the only people of all Proteſtants left ſtill undeliverd, from the oppreſſions of a Simonious decimating clergie; […]"obsoleterare

5. (obsolete) To divide into tenths; to decimalize.Examples: "For example, in multiplying 3 by 0.2, the 3 units have to be decimated—that is, divided into 10 equal parts, obtaining 3 “deci-units” for each part, and then 2 such parts taken, giving as the answer 6 deci-units, or 0.6."obsolete

6. (proscribed) To reduce to one-tenth: to destroy or remove nine-tenths of (something).Examples: "In this dramatic picture, the nation is literally decimated, and even the tenth which remains is subjected to a further destruction."; "African slaves were needed to replace Native American populations that had been decimated (literally reduced to one-tenth their size) by European conquest."; "In the New World, European colonists initially enslaved Native Americans, decimating the indigenous populations to one-tenth of their original sizes."proscribed