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Use decimate in a sentence

Definition of decimate:

  • (verb) kill in large numbers; "the plague wiped out an entire population"

Sentence Examples:

Antony, enraged at their conduct, seized the ringleaders and decimated them.

They see their regiments dwindle to nothing, their officers decimated, three-fourths of their comrades dead or wounded, and yet each night they gather about their bivouacs apparently undisturbed by it all.

This did not seem to me consistent with the confession that disorders of one kind or another still not infrequently decimate their highly-bred domestic animals, however the human race itself may have been secured against contagion.

We were at no time decimated by disease through ignorant or insubordinate disregard of the primary principles of hygiene.

The Turkish army, decimated and in fear of starvation, resolved to cut their way through the guarded defiles, and succeeded only by the loss of seven thousand men, with all their baggage and military stores.

To obtain soldiers sufficient to fill up the vacancies in his army which had been decimated by the plague, he was forced to enrol slaves; and to obtain money he had to sell the ornaments of the palace, and even some of the Empress's jewels.

One officer wrote home telling his friends that there was no danger of war, because the colonists were bullies, but not fighters, adding that any two regiments ought to be decimated which could not beat the entire force arrayed against them.

Meanwhile, the hardships which thus decimate the tribe toughen the survivors, and sometimes give them an apparent advantage over civilized men.

When the other, and junior, capital was receiving its cleansing by fire in 1666, Winchester was being more than decimated by the plague, which was as direful here as anywhere else.

Its long growing season, hot in summer by day and night, was perfectly congenial to the plant, its dry autumns permitted the reaping of full harvests, and its frosty winters decimated the insect pests.

Whole companies of them were annihilated, whole battalions decimated, yet the survivors were led to the shambles again.

Russell, that the "war had exposed the weakness of our military organization in the grave emergencies of a winter campaign, and the canker of a long peace was unmistakably manifested in our desolated camps and decimated battalions."

Torn, barefooted, burned, bleeding, decimated, they still laughed.

The explanation was that Hood's line was being enfiladed, his men decimated, and he could not hold his position.

When we fell back the news would be, "Hood's line is being enfiladed, and they are decimating his men, and he can't hold his position."

General Hood says they are enfilading his line, and are decimating his men, and he can't hold his position.

In his indignation this priest besought Apollo to send down a plague to decimate the foe's forces, and the Greeks soon learned from their oracles that its ravages would not cease until the maiden was restored to her father.

The people had been decimated by three years of famine: and no want could be more appalling than the want of food.

Worn by suffering, hardships and peril, and racked by the pestilential fever that still hovers about the river lowlands, De Soto paid the debt of nature, and his thrice decimated followers made their way back to France.

When at last the barbarians, sated with blood, surfeited with lechery, glutted with gold, and decimated by pestilence, withdrew, Rome raised her head a widow.

It had decimated itself for a question which involved no principle and led to no result, and perhaps the history of the world may be searched in vain for any parallel to a quarrel at once so desperate and so unmeaning.

They started for the Russian lines, toward one of the batteries which had so decimated the hapless wretches lying on the banks of the river.

Almost every hour the sound of fife and drum was heard, as shattered regiments and decimated battalions marched through the streets.

For, when after the awful sacrifice of human life which followed the inauguration of the new policy, the decimated army still were forced to retreat, the shadow of doom began to creep slowly upon the land.

Under the brow of the ridge, decimated and broken into a mere skirmish line sheltered in knots and singly, behind rocks and knolls and bushes, lay the Fourteenth Regiment, keeping up a steady, slow fire.

Typhus fever decimated the school periodically; and consumption and scrofula, in every variety of form bad air and water, bad and insufficient diet can generate, preyed on the ill-fated pupils.

One part at least of the military staff had become disorganized; regiments had been decimated, and considerable contingents were required to fill the vacancies in the ranks.

Since war and sickness had decimated his battalion he looked upon every absentee, from whatever cause, right or wrong, as a recreant deserter.

This seems inseparable from the Indian character, but it would be impossible in a moist climate; even under the favorable conditions of the plateau country many of the tribes are periodically decimated by smallpox.

Misfortune still pursued him; he rented one of the farms at a sum exceeding its value, and his capital was much too limited for stocking the other, while a disastrous murrain decimated his flock.

He had acquired in his campaigns immeasurable authority and renown, but his people had been decimated and impoverished, and he had gained no accession of territory.

For weeks these same regiments had been daily "decimated," "cut to pieces," and otherwise badly mauled by English war correspondents, but you would never have suspected it.

Typhus fever decimated the school periodically, and consumption and scrofula in every variety of form, which bad air and water, and bad, insufficient diet can generate, preyed on the ill-fated pupils.

Although successive volleys of balls decimated the Swedish ranks, their losses did not in the least deter them from pursuing their object with the most supreme indifference to death.

Civil war and disease decimated a population, already in the throes of agony and despair.

The monument we now unveil is to one whose name brings no thoughts of decimated ranks, or of desolated provinces, no memories of beleaguered cities, of starving peoples, or of orphans' tears.

So, alternately forcing themselves through the sand, and lying down for very want of breath, the sweating men came to the foot of the ridge, sadly decimated in numbers, but unconquerable in their determination to get to the top.

He was thus always supplied with arms and ammunition; and as his men were perfect marksmen, never wasted a shot and never risked a battle, his forces naturally increased while those of his opponents were decimated.

The old Mexican war decimated the regiment, which was always placed in positions of danger, requiring brave, cool, determined men, and it was then that Captain Martin Scott poured out his heart's blood in defense of his country.

He declaims against the cruel and tyrannical; and he kisses the hands of adulteresses who murder their husbands, and of robbers who decimate their gang.

No sooner does the primitive human hive reach that degree of density which is the one indispensable condition of civilization, than it is apt to breed a pestilence which will decimate and even scatter it.

Suddenly, without the slightest warning, a heavy fusillade opened on him from the opposite side of the street, a fusillade so heavy it would have decimated a company of infantry.

This word, meaning as it properly does to tithe, to take the tenth part, is hardly permissible in the sense in which it is used in such sentences as, "The regiment held its position, though terribly decimated by the enemy's artillery."

His application was refused, the tribunal apparently being of the opinion that a man who knew all about meat pies could decimate the German forces without striking a blow.

To fall back, now, up that long bare hillside, under full fire of the augmented German artillery, would mean a decimating of the entire command.

It hawks over pools and fields and through gardens, decimating swarms of mosquitoes, flies, gnats, and other baneful insects.

The national finances were disordered, the population decimated, and the provinces dismembered.

We got them well within the range of our rifle fire, and made our presence felt; but they kept pushing on with splendid determination and indomitable pluck, though their ranks were being decimated before our very eyes.

And when they chose to illustrate this noble principle by decimating their own numbers by persecution, and expelling from their limits all dissenters from their own establishment, the mother country never exerted herself to protect or prohibit.

Rather than fall back into the hands of the bandits who had ransomed and decimated them, Toulon, starved out, was about to receive the English within its walls and surrender to them the great arsenal of the South.

Moreover, contributions for the temple continued to flow into the treasury of a once opulent, but now impoverished and decimated people.

Always hungry, always in filth and rags, scarred and disfigured by disease, their numbers decimated many times over by an ever-present plague, what could they know of the sanctity of life?

He acknowledges his primacy, seated as it is in a provincial city, pauperized, and decimated with hunger and desertion.

The fourth line of attackers, however, finally succeeded in overrunning the decimated front line of Germans, who stood by their guns to the very last; those of them who had not fallen were made prisoners.

Again and again the Germans followed them into the death-dealing hollow, to be decimated unmercifully in the manner described above.

Furthermore, the old, well-trained regiments constituting the regular army had been decimated in the fierce battles along the Russian front, some of them being annihilated.

The detachment was pursued and decimated by Italian fire.

The fire burned at times with so intense a radiance that it would seem to have consumed his early voluptuousness while decimating neither his human nor his spiritual passion.

The sad economic condition of most of the German nations caused the decimated population to appear as overpopulation, and contributed greatly towards rendering a livelihood harder to earn, and towards prohibitions of marriage.

They had been pressed by hunger, horseflesh was already running short, and they had been decimated by disease.

If looks could have slaughtered individuals, the glance he cast at the sergeant would have slain that perspiring and angry person in an instant, while the scathing glances cast at the group of guards would have decimated the whole party.

The waste of effort and of wealth involved in planting trees and assiduously cultivating the soil for the growth of poor crops decimated by disease is the prime cause of the dearness of fruit.

They were decimated by war, driven up from their coastline till finally the reduced population, with many of the men killed in battle, occupied this hinterland, and defended it for years, in the mountain passes.

Instinctively the others sprang back, realizing that this was the point of danger; but still that unceasing fire went on pitilessly decimating them.

All along the line, fragments of rocks roll down from the overtopping crests, crushing and decimating the compact mass of soldiers below.

As soon as they arrived in this town, the generals made good their promise, and increased the pay; but, at the same time, these insubordinate soldiers were mercilessly decimated.

He will decimate a pack of hounds by rabid snaps with his giant jaws while suffering little damage himself; nor are the ordinary big dogs, supposed to be fighting dogs, able to tackle him without special training.

In addition, graver disasters decimate her family, if, as I do not doubt, we can apply to the bluebottle what I have seen happen in the case of her rival, the flesh fly.

I now only use the words decimated, literally, annihilated, and proletariat, according to the meanings ascribed to them in the dictionary, do not use pacifism more than three times a day, nor 'very essential' or 'rather unique' at all.

We had no guns with us at the moment, and we stood there like sheep while the Russians pounded us and their shells decimated our tottering ranks.

These true patriots must be instantly assisted, or a decimated and infuriated people will demand the expulsion of the entire Cabinet, and an entirely new issue of contracts for shoddy.

Here, then, we have a society which is continually decimating itself, and which would destroy itself, did not the periodical occurrence of failures, bankruptcies, and political and economical catastrophes re-establish equilibrium, and distract attention from the real causes of the universal distress.

A new ballot would only set forth in bolder relief the isolation of the Commune; and then, is the moment of the fight, when the battalion is decimated, deprived of its chief, the opportune time for insisting upon a regular promotion?

After two such victories in succession as the Duke himself declared before the Lords that he had never known or read of, he was removed from the command of his army, and a general by whose rashness it was decimated was raised to the peerage.

What they did not see was their broken and decimated tribes hunted and starving, driven out of the land of their forefathers, utterly cowed and submissive.

In spite of these decimating influences, and their companion, the blizzard, the buffalo herds multiplied, and the Great Plains themselves seemed to be "alive and to move," as the countless numbers slowly grazed over them.

Our ranks were decimated by disease, and the authorities apparently regardless of our health, food, clothing, and comfort, so necessary to render an army contented and vigorous in the face of the enemy.

From time to time deep ranks of infantry pushed forward under fire toward the mountain, as if wishing to try an assault; but decimated by cannon and muskets, they returned each time quickly and in disorder under their own batteries.

Misrule, slavery, labor in the mines, neglect of that intensive and government-directed agriculture which had alone rendered it possible to sustain the dense population of Inca times, decimated the Indians.

Under the severe fire of the Confederates his troops were provoked to return fire, and during the delay thus caused his ranks were so speedily decimated that they in turn were obliged to return to cover.

The traditions are so confused, and the versions so different in detail, that there is some reason to believe either that there were two visitations or that infection travelled so slowly that the disease only reached the western portion of the group some years after it had decimated the islands to the eastward.

Who but believes that, should we lose, militarism would be the searching test of all Governments and that the world would be an armed camp harried and tortured and decimated by endless wars?

It gradually dawned upon the propagandists that instead of being decimated in a fruitless attempt to get at the common people they should first devote themselves to an effort in the direction of free speech.

It lies largely with the medical profession how long tubercular disease shall decimate the human race.

A people of rare natural gifts had been tortured, decimated, humiliated, despoiled, for a century and more.

Hitherto, they have succeeded in refraining from that mournful tendency to intoxication, which decimates and brutalizes their brothers.

Her citizens fought from house to house, every street had barricades, and it was only that when decimated by pestilence and famine, with half the place a smoking ruin, one of the most celebrated sieges of history came to end.

Recruits of the kind sent to us would, even under favorable circumstances, be difficult material from which to evolve soldierly men; and considering their terrible hardships, it was no wonder the regiment was nearly decimated.

He had browbeaten an Emperor, hoodwinked a couple of wily Chancellors, and decimated the ranks of rival practitioners.

And surely it was the export slave trade, created by the cupidity of the Portuguese, but shared in by Dutch, French and English, which undermined the prosperity of the country, and decimated its population.

There were many roving Indians about whose tribes had been decimated by wars and sickness, and who attached themselves to the English or American cause, whichever offered the most profit, and who liked a lawless, wandering life and plunder.

The 11th Prussian infantry regiment, serving under the Red Prince, had suffered severely, and were nearly decimated on the 8th December.

With victory in our grasp, and a decimated opposition, a frightful surprise occurred, and the most unsporting thing was done by the Fourth that you could find in the gory annals of war.

His expedition was successful as far as overcoming Spanish opposition was concerned, but a deadlier enemy than the Don decimated his ranks.

For many years no more serious problem has faced the insular government than that of stamping out the contagious diseases which were decimating the horses and cattle of the islands and threatening to render agriculture almost impossible.

Luckily the invaders had already spread, so that there were no close ranks to be decimated by the fusillade, and in the darkness and the flurry the defenders' fire was necessarily ill-aimed.

The musketry decimated them, and they could only reply by firing their arrows, or by hurling their javelins.

All at once, the chief of the battalion, who ought to have supported the attack on the right, seeing his company decimated by canister, lost his head completely, and fell back in disorder on the French quarters.

On the one hand, the excessive indulgence of the rich; on the other hand, the awful privations of the poor, decimated the nations, and most decimated, precisely those nations which most boasted their civilization.

Decimated and impoverished, they were met by a steadily increasing temper of hatred and oppression.