Word a Day
devastate
What does devastate mean?
devastate (verb): cause extensive destruction or ruin utterly.
Definition: Princeton WordNet 3.1.
How do you pronounce devastate?
/ˈdɛvəˌsteɪt/ (IPA, American English). The app reads every word aloud.
Where does devastate come from?
Borrowed from Latin dēvastātus, perfect passive participle of dēvastō (“to lay waste, devastate”); from dē- (augmentative prefix) + vastō (“to destroy, lay waste”).
Etymology: Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.
Words related to devastate
From Princeton WordNet 3.1.
Test yourself: do you know “devastate”?
Tap an answer to check it. The same questions the app asks.
What does “devastate” mean?
be emphatic or resolute and refuse to budge
Not quite: that's what insist means.
make more intense, stronger, or more marked
Not quite: that's what compound means.
cause extensive destruction or ruin utterly
Right! That's what “devastate” means.
to change greatly the appearance or form of
Not quite: that's what transform means.
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