I read your post after having posted mine and both usage notes make me understand that ‘decimate’ is now acceptable for an undetermined number of casualties but ‘completely decimated’ or ‘decimated 37 per cent of the population’ are not acceptable. At least don’t sound good to me.
The thing that your link -great site by the way- has confirmed me is that ‘decimate’ was a disciplinary action taken by the roman chiefs against their own troops. I was pretty sure but this article confirmed it.


Juan Maria.