It's the Word of the Day podcast for April 27th.
Today's word is decimate, spelled D-E-C-I-M-A-T-E.
Decimate is a verb.
It can mean both to destroy a large number of plants or animals or people or to severely damage or destroy a large part of something.
Here's the word used in a sentence from the freelance star of Fredericksburg.
The deer, and there is an abundance of those animals this year,
got into my beans and, within a few nights, they had all but decimated my crop.
Tracks showed that at least half a dozen whitetails were invading the garden every night.
The word decimate is one that often raises hackles,
at least those belonging to a small but committed group of logophiles who feel that it is commonly misused.
The issue that they have with the decline and fall of the word decimate is that once upon a time in ancient Rome,
it had a very singular meaning, to select by lot and kill every tenth man of a military unit.
However,
many words in English descended from Latin have changed and or expanded their meanings in their travels.
For example,
we no longer think of sinister as meaning on the left side and delicious can describe things both tasty and delightful.
Was the to kill every tenth man meaning the original use of decimate in English?
Yes, but not by much.
It took only a few decades for the word decimate to acquire its broader familiar meaning of to severely damage or destroy,
which has been employed steadily since the 17th century.