Verb

To damage beyond use or repair.

The earthquake destroyed several apartment complexes.

To cause destruction.

''Hooligans destroy unprovoked

To neutralize, undo a property or condition.

''Smoking destroys the natural subtlety of the palate

To put down or euthanize.

Destroying a rabid dog is required by law.

(colloquial) To defeat soundly.

(computing) To remove data.

The memory leak happened because we forgot to destroy the temporary lists.

Verb

(transitive)  To profane or violate the sacredness or sanctity of something.

* 1916 — James Whitcomb Riley, The Complete Works of James Whitcomb Riley , Volume 10.

It's reform -- reform! You're going to 'turn over a new leaf,' and all that, and sign the pledge, and quit cigars, and go to work, and pay your debts, and gravitate back into Sunday-school, where you can make love to the preacher's daughter under the guise of religion, and desecrate the sanctity of the innermost pale of the church by confessions at Class of your 'thorough conversion'!

(transitive)  To remove the consecration from someone or something; to deconsecrate.

(transitive)  To inappropriately change.

* 1913 — William Alexander Lambeth and Warren H. Manning, Thomas Jefferson as an Architect and a Designer of Landscapes.

A subsequent owner has desecrated the main hall and robbed it of its grandeur by putting in a floor just beneath the circular windows in order to make an upper room over the hall.

* {{quote-book, year=1963, author=(Margery Allingham)

, title=(The China Governess) , chapter=Foreword citation , passage=Everything a living animal could do to destroy and to desecrate bed and walls had been done. […] A canister of flour from the kitchen had been thrown at the looking-glass and lay like trampled snow over the remains of a decent blue suit with the lining ripped out which lay on top of the ruin of a plastic wardrobe.}}