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Kill vs Decimate - What's the difference?

kill | decimate |

As verbs the difference between kill and decimate

is that kill is to put to death; to extinguish the life of while decimate is (roman history) to kill one man chosen by lot out of every ten in a legion or other military group.

As a noun kill

is the act of killing or kill can be a creek; a body of water; a channel or arm of the sea or kill can be a kiln.

kill

English

(wikipedia kill)

Etymology 1

From (etyl) killen, kyllen, , (etyl) kellen.

Verb

(en verb)
  • To put to death; to extinguish the life of.
  • Smoking kills more people each year than alcohol and drugs combined.
    There is conclusive evidence that smoking kills .
  • (fiction) To invent a story that conveys the death of (a character).
  • Shakespeare killed Romeo and Juliet for drama.
  • To render inoperative.
  • He killed the engine and turned off the headlights, but remained in the car, waiting.
    (1978):
  • :: Peter : Ask Childers if it was worth his arm.
  • :: Policeman : What did you do to his arm, Peter?
  • :: Peter''': I '''killed it, with a machine gun.
  • (figuratively) To stop, cease or render void; to terminate.
  • The editor decided to kill the story.
    The news that a hurricane had destroyed our beach house killed our plans to sell it.
    My computer wouldn't respond until I killed some of the running processes.
  • (transitive, figuratively, hyperbole) To amaze, exceed, stun or otherwise incapacitate.
  • That night, she was dressed to kill .
    That joke always kills me.
  • (figuratively) To produce feelings of dissatisfaction or revulsion in.
  • It kills me to throw out three whole turkeys, but I can't get anyone to take them and they've already started to go bad.
    It kills me to learn how many poor people are practically starving in this country while rich moguls spend such outrageous amounts on useless luxuries.
  • To use up or to waste.
  • I'm just doing this to kill time.
    He told the bartender, pointing at the bottle of scotch he planned to consume, "Leave it, I'm going to kill the bottle."
  • (transitive, figuratively, informal) To exert an overwhelming effect on.
  • Between the two of us, we killed the rest of the case of beer.
    Look at the amount of destruction to the enemy base. We pretty much killed their ability to retaliate anymore.
  • (transitive, figuratively, hyperbole) To overpower, overwhelm or defeat.
  • The team had absolutely killed their traditional rivals, and the local sports bars were raucous with celebrations.
  • To force a company out of business.
  • (informal) To produce intense pain.
  • You don't ever want to get rabies. The doctor will have to give you multiple shots and they really kill .
  • (figuratively, informal, hyperbole) To punish severely.
  • My parents are going to kill me!
  • (sports) To strike a ball or similar object with such force and placement as to make a shot that is impossible to defend against, usually winning a point.
  • * {{quote-news
  • , year=2011 , date=February 4 , author=Gareth Roberts , title=Wales 19-26 England , work=BBC citation , page= , passage=That close call encouraged Wales to launch another series of attacks that ended when lock Louis Deacon killed the ball illegally in the shadow of England's posts.}}
  • (mathematics, transitive, idiomatic, informal) To cause to assume the value zero.
  • (computing, Internet, IRC) To disconnect (a user) forcibly from the network.
  • Synonyms
    * (to put to death) assassinate, bump off, ice, knock off, liquidate, murder, rub out, slaughter, slay, top, whack * (to use up or waste) fritter away, while away * (to render inoperative) break, deactivate, disable, turn off * (to exert an overwhelming effect on) annihilate (informal) * See also

    Noun

    (en noun)
  • The act of killing.
  • The assassin liked to make a clean kill , and thus favored small arms over explosives.
  • Specifically, the death blow.
  • The hunter delivered the kill with a pistol shot to the head.
  • The result of killing; that which has been killed.
  • The fox dragged its kill back to its den.
  • (volleyball) The grounding of the ball on the opponent's court, winning the rally.
  • * 2011 , the 34th Catawba College Sports Hall of Fame'', in 's ''Campus Magazine , Spring/Summer 2011, page 21:
  • As a senior in 1993, Turner had a kill' percentage of 40.8, which was a school record at the time and the best in the SAC. Turner concluded her volleyball career with 1,349 ' kills , ranking fifth all-time at Catawba.
    Derived terms
    * in for the kill * thrill kill

    Etymology 2

    From (etyl)

    Noun

    (en noun)
  • A creek; a body of water; a channel or arm of the sea.
  • The channel between Staten Island and Bergen Neck is the Kill''' van Kull, or the '''Kills .
    Schuylkill''', Cats'''kill , etc.

    Etymology 3

    Noun

    (en noun)
  • A kiln.
  • (Fuller)
    1000 English basic words ----

    decimate

    English

    Verb

    (decimat)
  • (Roman history) To kill one man chosen by lot out of every ten in a legion or other military group.
  • * ; from volume 1 of an 1835 edition of his works):
  • God sometimes decimates or tithes delinquent persons, and they died for a common crime, according as God hath cast their lot in the decrees of predestination.
  • * 1989 , Basil Davidson, The Ancient World and Africa,'' in ''Egypt Revisited, edited by Ivan Van Sertima ([http://print.google.com/print?hl=en&id=IwEZ3-QtsDEC&pg=PA49&lpg=PA49&sig=CXM6Xb5lVuNuDNE7iYDzggSPgg4]):
  • Said to have been martyred as a Christian legionary commander of late Roman times for having refused an imperial order to kill one in ten (that is, decimate [,] in the Roman meaning of the word) of the soldiers of another legion which had gone into revolt
  • * 1998 , Adrian Goldsworthy, The Roman Army at War ([http://print.google.com/print?hl=en&id=55KE-nNtTRUC&pg=PA263&lpg=PA263&sig=pp2fv17oynz5w73_Cq1kKV3YgKI]):
  • where Caesar threatened to disband Legio X after a mutiny. The men begged him to decimate them instead, and Caesar relented in the same way that Titus refrained from executing this cavalryman after his comrades’ appeal.
  • To reduce anything by one in ten, or ten percent.
  • * 2007 , Russell T Davies, The Sound of Drums'', episode 12 of revived series 3 of ''Doctor Who :
  • Shall we decimate them? That sounds good, nice word. Remove one-tenth of the population!
  • * 1840 , P J Proudhon, ([http://print.google.com/print?hl=en&id=zVx5JLepYrsC&pg=PA164&lpg=PA164&sig=NuyvXEikIdgZAnc17xlO_irqsm0]):
  • Out of nine hundred, ninety will be ejected, that the production of the others may be increased one-tenth. Here, then, we have a society which is continually decimating itself[.]
  • (historical) To exact a tithe or tax of 10 percent.
  • * 1669 , , The wild gallant :
  • I have heard you are as poor as a decimated Cavalier [referring to Cromwell's ten per cent. income-tax on Cavaliers], and had not one foot of land in all the world.
  • * 1819 , (John Lingard), History of England ([http://print.google.com/print?hl=en&id=_oyv8qYm2p0C&pg=PA352&lpg=PA352&sig=YkvtlMBSnPMQR9CNBVeJ6ZYKFuc]):
  • In addition, an ordinance was published that “all who had ever borne arms for the king, or declared themselves to be of the royal party, should be decimated , that is, pay a tenth part of all the estate which they had left, to support the charge which the commonwealth was put to
  • To reduce to one-tenth.
  • * 1998 , Israel, the Land and the People, edited by H Wayne House ([http://print.google.com/print?hl=en&id=cYAJwOR_WucC&pg=PA63&lpg=PA63&sig=JdWxs7ANZdt2Rsf8l3XvrufbUEY]):
  • In this dramatic picture, the nation is literally decimated , and even the tenth which remains is subjected to a further destruction.
  • * 2000 , Louise Redd, Hangover Soup ([http://print.google.com/print?hl=en&id=QQhiV7Q86WwC&pg=PA90&lpg=PA90&sig=af0g5hwuqIQ25x5HDgZ989XlV6A]):
  • comments about the Rangers’ decimated' pitching staff. Jay commented to the other drunks that although the word '''''decimated is often used to mean “demolished” or “destroyed,” it literally means “reduced to one-tenth of its former number.”
  • * 2003 , Susan S. Hunter, Black Death ([http://print.google.com/print?hl=en&id=wRd8QpoVGtQC&pg=PA58&lpg=PA58&sig=VrjLlpEwSjIhvixx3vw_5zKJHVY]):
  • African slaves were needed to replace Native American populations that had been decimated (literally reduced to one-tenth their size) by European conquest.
  • * 1788 , Edward Gibbon, History of (the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire) volume 4 ([http://print.google.com/print?hl=en&id=NaILpSlC-b0C&pg=PA158&lpg=PA158&sig=RsQ4cf_TT_xkB1fHypjbWWAi1o4]):
  • Yet such population [viz. 300,000 males slain] is incredible; and the second or third city of Italy need not repine if we only decimate the numbers of the present text. Both Milan and Genoa revived in less than thirty years.
  • * 2005 , Wilma A. Dunaway, Put in Master’s Pocket'', in ''Appalachians and Race , edited by John C Inscoe ([http://print.google.com/print?hl=en&id=hea586e-L0QC&pg=PA116&lpg=PA116&sig=X4GTYsenkf2pcv9rXG9dvFOep1k]):
  • In the New World, European colonists initially enslaved Native Americans, decimating the indigenous populations to one-tenth of their original sizes.
  • To severely reduce; to destroy almost completely.
  • * , History of England from the fall of Wolsey to the death of Elizabeth :
  • It [England] had decimated itself for a question which involved no principle, and led to no result.
  • * 2004 , Adrian Goldsworthy, In the Name of Rome ([http://print.google.com/print?hl=en&id=TdKqfF9u4WQC&pg=PA245&lpg=PA245&sig=qrUZwfkR44lgJz-TrvZpYbrjSDI]):
  • He then declared that he would decimate Legio IX, but allowed himself to be ‘persuaded’ by the pleas of officers and men only to execute twelve of the 120 soldiers seen as ringleaders.
  • (computer graphics) To replace a high-resolution model with one of lower resolution but acceptably similar appearance.
  • * 1999 , Mihalisin, Timlin and Schwegler in Visualizing Multivariate Functions, Data and Distributions'', collected in ''Readings in Information Visualization: Using Vision to Think , ISBN 1558605339, page 122:
  • A decimate tool allows us to obtain a more coarse-grained view of the data over the full (n)-dimensional space.
  • * 2001 , Inside 3Ds Max 4 , edited by Kim Lee, ISBN 0735710945, page 56:
  • However, many times it is more practical to decimate existing high-res models because of time, money or manpower issues.
  • * 2004 , Geremy Heitz, Torsten Rohlfing and Calvin Maurer in Automatic Generation of Shape Models using Nonrigid Registration with a Single Segmented Template Mesh'' collected in ''Vision Modeling and Visualization 2004 ISBN 1586034723, page 74:
  • Given this initial fine mesh, we smooth and decimate it to a desired mesh resolution.

    Usage notes

    The definition reduce by one in ten'' is occasionally cited as "the correct" definition, with ''severely reduce'' considered a misconception, arrived at by reading ''decimate'' as to reduce to''' one-tenth rather than ' by one-tenth. The Cambridge Guide to English Usage states that the nonspecific use of this word to mean devastate'' or ''severely reduce the numbers of is "nowadays the commonest use of the word in both British and American English, and it’s registered without comment in modern dictionaries." It also advises against using numbers with the term, as "They are redundant where it means 'reduce by one tenth', and where it doesn't they confound the arithmetic."[http://print.google.com/print?hl=en&id=UA5syoe1kc0C&pg=PA144&lpg=PA144&sig=iBI36wGnmi-L71sDwui_l-rUwJs] The 23 occurrences of decimate in the British National Corpus] — compare [http://sara.natcorp.ox.ac.uk/cgi-bin/saraWeb?qy=decimates decimates], [http://sara.natcorp.ox.ac.uk/cgi-bin/saraWeb?qy=decimated decimated], and [http://sara.natcorp.ox.ac.uk/cgi-bin/saraWeb?qy=decimating decimating — almost all clearly accord with the nonspecific sense. The only references to the historical sense are two complaints about modern usage and its critics. Neither of these actually uses the term to mean "reduce by one-tenth".

    Coordinate terms

    * (decimate equivalents)

    References

    * *