destroy

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Contents

[edit] English

[edit] Etymology

Middle English destroyen, from Old French destruire, Vulgar Latin *destrugō, from Classical Latin dēstruō, from dē- + struō (I build).

[edit] Pronunciation

  • (file)
  • Rhymes: -ɔɪ
  • Hyphenation: de‧stroy

[edit] Verb

destroy (third-person singular simple present destroys, present participle destroying, simple past and past participle destroyed)

  1. (transitive) To damage beyond use or repair.
    The earthquake destroyed several apartment complexes.
  2. (intransitive) To cause destruction.
    Hooligans destroy unprovoked
  3. (transitive) To neutralize, undo a property or condition.
    Smoking destroys the natural subtlety of the palate
  4. (transitive) To put down or euthanize.
    Destroying a rabid dog is required by law.
  5. (colloquial) (transitive) To defeat soundly.
  6. (computing) (transitive) To remove data.
    The memory leak happened because we forgot to destroy the temporary lists.

[edit] Synonyms

[edit] Antonyms

[edit] Derived terms

[edit] Related terms

[edit] Translations

The translations below need to be checked and inserted above into the appropriate translation tables, removing any numbers. Numbers do not necessarily match those in definitions. See instructions at Help:How to check translations.
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