decimation

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[edit] English

[edit] Etymology

From Latin decimātiō, a punishment where every 10th man in a unit would be stoned to death by the men who were spared. Used by the Romans to keep order in their military. Compare septimation and vicesimation.

[edit] Pronunciation

[edit] Noun

decimation (plural decimations)

  1. The killing or destruction of a large portion of a population.
    • 1702: Cotton Mather, Magnalia Christi Americana - And the whole army had cause to enquire into their own rebellions, when they saw the Lord of Hosts, with a dreadful decimation, taking off so many of our brethren by the worst of executioners.
  2. A tithing.
  3. A selection of every tenth person by lot, as for punishment.
  4. (mathematics) The creation of a new sequence comprising only every nth element of the original sequence.
  5. (telecommunications) A digital signal processing technique for reducing the number of samples in a discrete-time signal.

[edit] Coordinate terms

[edit] Translations

[edit] References

  • The Century Dictionary, The Century Co., New York, 1914
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