devastating

adjective

dev·​as·​tat·​ing ˈde-və-ˌstā-tiŋ 

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

devastatingly

ˈde-və-ˌstā-tiŋ-lē 

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

Postcards from the Edge is a devastatingly savvy, bitingly funny, yet sad movie based on Carrie Fisher's autobiographical novel about Hollywood.

—Jeffrey Lyons

… is portrayed as a devastatingly effective power broker in the Senate.

—Alan Brinkley

Synonyms of devastating

• disastrous
• destructive
• devastative
• deadly

Examples of devastating in a Sentence

a devastating blow to our morale

Recent Examples on the Web

The Broncos’ euphoria over its victory over the Bills was tempered, however, by the devastating loss of the team’s starting quarterback Bo Nix, who broke a bone in his right ankle on the second-to-last play of the game. —Tim Lammers, Forbes.com, 23 Jan. 2026

Media executives have been gearing up for AI to deal the journalism industry a fatal blow as the advent of the tech has left devastating holes in web traffic. —Victor Tangermann, Futurism, 22 Jan. 2026

The death toll from a devastating fire at a shopping plaza in Pakistan’s southern port city of Karachi jumped to 67 on Thursday after police and a hospital official confirmed that the remains of dozens more people had been found. —Adil Jawad, Los Angeles Times, 22 Jan. 2026

As the sun begins to come up on Wednesday, the owners will be assessing the damage after the devastating fire. —Jessica Riley, CBS News, 21 Jan. 2026

Word History

First Known Use

1634, in the meaning defined at sense 1

Rhymes for devastating

• abdicating
• abrogating
• activating
• actuating
• advocating
• aggravating
• aggregating
• agitating
• allocating
• alternating
• animating
• annotating