Decimate.
Decimate is a VERY misused word. You hear people talk about how they decimated the competition.
“My strategy decimated his forces”.
Hearing this, you would assume that they destroyed most of the opponents forces. Well, you would be WRONG.
We use decimate as if it means to destroy most of something, but it actually means to destroy 1 tenth of something. That means the sentence says the same thing as:
“My strategy destroyed 10% of his forces.”
Now, this doesn’t mean that if you use decimate wrong people won’t understand you, it just means it’s commonly misused.
Did you enjoy this week’s Word of the Week? Why don’t you suggest next week’s word?
So, after I did a little research on the word “decimate”, it comes from Latin armies. When they were punished, the leaders would kill every tenth man. However the definition in modern day means “to destroy a large percentage or great proportion of”. So, no, it’s not misused.