Definitions
from The Century Dictionary.
- noun A tithing; specifically, an income-tax of 10 per cent. levied on the Cavaliers by Cromwell.
- noun A selection of every tenth by lot, as for punishment, etc.
- noun The destruction of a great but indefinite number or proportion of people, as of an army or of the inhabitants of a country; a heavy loss of life.
from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.
- noun obsolete A tithing.
- noun A selection of every tenth person by lot, as for punishment.
- noun The destruction of any large proportion, as of people by pestilence or war.
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.
- noun The
killing or destruction of a large portion of a population. - noun A
tithing . - noun A
selection of every tenth person by lot, as for punishment. - noun mathematics The creation of a new
sequence comprising only every nth element of the original sequence. - noun telecommunications A
digital signal processing technique for reducing the number of samples in a discrete-time signal.
from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.
- noun destroying or killing a large part of the population (literally every tenth person as chosen by lot)
Etymologies
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License
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Examples
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Five hundred men were caught shirking their duty; one out of every ten was selected for execution, which is why the procedure was called decimation analogous to our word decimal, that is, one-tenth.
The Spartacus War Barry Strauss 2009
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Five hundred men were caught shirking their duty; one out of every ten was selected for execution, which is why the procedure was called decimation analogous to our word decimal, that is, one-tenth.
The Spartacus War Barry Strauss 2009
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Five hundred men were caught shirking their duty; one out of every ten was selected for execution, which is why the procedure was called decimation analogous to our word decimal, that is, one-tenth.
The Spartacus War Barry Strauss 2009
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Five hundred men were caught shirking their duty; one out of every ten was selected for execution, which is why the procedure was called decimation analogous to our word decimal, that is, one-tenth.
The Spartacus War Barry Strauss 2009
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In the United States we have watched the long term decimation of the manufacturing sector and a transition to a "service" economy.
Economic Globalization and Speculation Coming Home to Roost 2008
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The Romans even figured out how to deter cowardice that causes the death of others with the technique called decimation: If a legion lost a battle and there was suspicion of cowardice, 10 percent of the soldiers and commanders - usually chosen at random - were put to death.
NYT > Home Page By NASSIM NICHOLAS TALEB 2011
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The St. Petersburg Times reported an absolute "decimation" of the game fish population with recent record-breaking cold temperatures.
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The St. Petersburg Times reported an absolute "decimation" of the game fish population with recent record-breaking cold temperatures.
Printing: Frigid Florida Waters Decimating Fish and Turtles 2010
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The St. Petersburg Times reported an absolute "decimation" of the game fish population with recent record-breaking cold temperatures.
Georgianne Nienaber: Sanibel Island: Frigid Florida Waters Decimating Fish and Turtles 2010
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No, the prologue for the decimation (which has already happened, since "decimation" refers to reduction by one-tenth, and since 2006 you've lost well more than that) was that people like you, except perhaps with marginally better communication skills, have been running the thing.
bilby commented on the word decimation
"One of the inherited legacies from Chevron's 2001 acquisition of Texaco is litigation in Ecuador over the company's alleged decimation of the Ecuadorian Amazon over a 20-year period of operation. In 1993, 30,000 indigenous Ecuadorians filed a class action suit in U.S. courts, alleging that Texaco had poisoned the land where they live and the waterways on which they rely, allowing billions of gallons of oil to spill and leaving hundreds of waste pits unlined and uncovered. They sought billions in compensation for the harm to their land and livelihood, and for alleged health harms."
- Robert Weissman, 'The System Implodes: The 10 Worst Corporations of 2008', The Multinational Monitor, 23 Nov 2008.
November 26, 2008