Definition of devastating
1
: causing great damage or harm
- a devastating flood/earthquake
- a devastating injury
- A devastating coastal tsunami could also result from a severe displacement of the San Andreas Fault.
- —Gary Sandquist
2
: causing extreme emotional pain
- a devastating loss
- Even the most banal domestic melodramas, readers come to understand, are experienced as devastating tragedies by children living them for the first time.
- —Entertainment Weekly
3
: extremely effective or powerful
- a devastating satire
- He had a devastating wit and an utter contempt for shoddy work in physics.
- —Jeremy Bernstein
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devastatingly
adverb-
- Some people recover readily from the infection, but in others it becomes disseminated, spreading rapidly and devastatingly from lungs to bones, skin and nervous system
- —Lawrence Galton
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- Postcards from the Edge is a devastatingly savvy, bitingly funny, yet sad movie based on Carrie Fisher's autobiographical novel about Hollywood.
- —Jeffrey Lyons
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- … is portrayed as a devastatingly effective power broker in the Senate.
- —Alan Brinkley
