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Sep 17, 2002

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This week's words
demagogue
decimate
feisty
egregious
officious

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decimate

verb tr.:
1. To destroy a large number of (a group).
2. To kill every tenth person.

[From Latin decimatus, past participle of decimare, from decimus (tenth), from decem (ten). Decimation -- killing one out of every ten soldiers -- was the favorite method of punishing mutinous legions in the ancient Roman army. Today the word has evolved to mean large-scale damage where a major proportion is annihilated.]

"Workers are collecting the few scraps of uniforms -- in one case, a nearly complete military hat -- to be analyzed for parasites. DNA analysis may help resolve whether a strain of typhus borne by lice helped decimate the troops."
Michael Wines; Baltic Soil Yields Evidence of a Bitter End to Napoleon's Army; The New York Times; Sep 14, 2002.

"Winter grain crops across the state have been decimated by the conditions, with little relief expected and hopes now pinned on summer crops."
Mark Scala; Never Rains But it Sprinkles - Light Showers Can't Break Drought's Grip; The Daily Telegraph (Sydney, Australia); Sep 7, 2002.

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