- 1重創、大規模毀滅；歷史上的古義是「抽十殺一」
Decimation is the noun: the destroying of a large part of something, or the result of that. You will see “the decimation of” forests, jobs, or a city’s old shops. It has a heavy, news-like feel. Though actually, in Roman history it named a specific army punishment: every tenth man in a unit was killed, often by the men who were spared, to the rest into obeying. History books still use that tight meaning; newspapers almost never do. The everyday English sense has drifted a long way from “one in ten”.
組成Borrowed from Latin decimātiō, the Roman army punishment in which every tenth man was killed by those who were spared, to keep order.
同家族的字
- decimatethe verb this noun comes from
原始詞典資料5 筆記錄
以下是外部詞典記錄的用法，摘錄並精簡格式，我們還沒有寫成教學內容。上面的說明才是我們自己寫的；有些用法可能上面已經講過了。
decimationnoun/ˌdɛsɪˈmeɪʃən/
- 1
The killing or punishment of every tenth person, usually by lot.
- By decimation and a tythed death; / If thy Reuenges hunger for that Food, / Which Nature loathes, take thou the deſtin'd tenth, […]
- 2
The killing or destruction of any large portion of a population.
- And the vvhole Army had cauſe to enquire into their own Rebellions, vvhen they ſavv the Lord of Hoſts, vvith a dreadful Decimation, taking off ſo many of our Brethren by the vvorſt of Executioners.
- General Secretary Mick Lynch said: "It is crystal clear that the planned cutbacks on ScotRail and SWR are just the tip of the iceberg, as cynical employers use the cloak of COVID-19 to smuggle through the decimation of jobs and services on Britain's railways.
- 3
A tithe or the act of tithing.
- 4
mathematicssciencesThe creation of a new sequence comprising only every nth element of a source sequence.
- 5
computingengineeringmathematicsThe creation of a new sequence comprising only every nth element of a source sequence.
摘錄自 英文維基詞典 English Wiktionary，已精簡格式；依 CC BY-SA 4.0 授權使用，改動後的內容同樣以此授權提供。