— decimation , n. — decimator , n.
/des"euh mayt'/ , v.t., decimated, decimating .
1. to destroy a great number or proportion of: The population was decimated by a plague.
2. to select by lot and kill every tenth person of.
3. Obs. to take a tenth of or from.
[ 1590-1600; decimatus, ptp. of decimare to punish every tenth man chosen by lot, v. deriv. of decimus tenth, deriv. of decem TEN; see ATE 1 ]
Usage . The earliest English sense of DECIMATE is "to select by lot and execute every tenth soldier of (a unit)." The extended sense "destroy a great number or proportion of" developed in the 19th century: Cholera decimated the urban population. Because the etymological sense of one-tenth remains to some extent, DECIMATE is not ordinarily used with exact fractions or percentages: Drought has destroyed (not decimated ) nearly 80 percent of the cattle.