To take the tenth part of; to tithe., To select by lot and punish with death every tenth man of; as, to decimate a regiment as a punishment for mutiny., To destroy a considerable part of; as, to decimate an army in battle; to decimate a people by disease.
Only the second meaning is accurate: decimate
The original meaning for the term decimate is to kill one man out of every ten. This comes from ancient Roman times when mutinous squads were decimated. I.e. 1/10 of their soldiers were killed. The method in those times was to get the remaining 9 soldiers of every 10 to kill the chosen soldier. Nowadays however, the meaning for decimate has changed to mean the destruction of the larger part of a group. Have fun with this! ;)
If I decimate this meal, I'll only have eaten ten percent of it. The army is preparing to decimate the city.
decimal is an adjective, decimate is a verb.
Decimate Christendom was created in 2004-03.
Decimate the Weak was created on 2008-02-05.
You can not decimate all the people. King Decimated all the traitors.
a decimate
My daughter is involved in a movement to decimate the local park by keeping its grounds clean.
deci- is a prefix, meaning ten. e.g. decimate - reduce by a tenth; decibel - ten Bel (unit of sound)
decimate
Mass Murder