Thanks, tsuwm for filling in the background on decimate. I was quite confident that the usage my Chambers calls "loose" was established by the 19th C., and it's nice to know that I was not far off. My view on decimate was that it was a word with a specific, technically correct word usurped for broader use, much the way that the specific, technical definition of epidemic appears to be under threat from a broader use. I shall, however, revel in using "epizootic" just to show off.