Wreck vs Devastate - What's the difference?
wreck | devastate | Related terms |
Something or someone that has been ruined.
The remains of something that has been severely damaged or worn down.
* Cowper
An event in which something is damaged through collision.
* Addison
* Spenser
* J. R. Green
(legal) Goods, etc. cast ashore by the sea after a shipwreck.
To destroy violently; to cause severe damage to something, to a point where it no longer works, or is useless.
* Shakespeare
To ruin or dilapidate.
(Australia) To dismantle wrecked vehicles or other objects, to reclaim any useful parts.
To involve in a wreck; hence, to cause to suffer ruin; to balk of success, and bring disaster on.
* Daniel
To ruin many or all things over a large area, such as most or all buildings of a city, or cities of a region, or trees of a forest.
To destroy a whole collection of related ideas, beliefs, and strongly held opinions.
To break beyond recovery or repair so that the only options are abandonment or the clearing away of useless remains (if any) and starting over.
As verbs the difference between wreck and devastate
is that wreck is to destroy violently; to cause severe damage to something, to a point where it no longer works, or is useless while devastate is to ruin many or all things over a large area, such as most or all buildings of a city, or cities of a region, or trees of a forest.As a noun wreck
is something or someone that has been ruined.wreck
English
Noun
(en noun)- He was an emotional wreck after the death of his wife.
- To the fair haven of my native home, / The wreck of what I was, fatigued I come.
- the wreck of matter and the crush of worlds
- Hard and obstinate / As is a rock amidst the raging floods, / 'Gainst which a ship, of succour desolate, / Doth suffer wreck , both of herself and goods.
- Its intellectual life was thus able to go on amidst the wreck of its political life.
- (Bouvier)
Synonyms
* crash * ruinsDerived terms
* shipwreckVerb
(en verb)- He wrecked the car in a collision.
- That adulterous hussy wrecked my marriage!
- Supposing that they saw the king's ship wrecked .
- Weak and envied, if they should conspire, / They wreck themselves.