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

Their ability to keep the ball away from opponents with their precise, pretty lpasses, before finding a cutting edge through Lamine Yamal or Mikel Oyarzabal, has been devastating to watch unfurl in this tournament. — Kyle Feldscher, CNN Money, 16 July 2026

Amid a devastating drought, Colorado’s labyrinthine water management rules have yielded a silver lining for rafters, kayakers and visitors seeking the thrill of whitewater. — Elise Schmelzer, Denver Post, 16 July 2026

An emergency physician by training, Menon had practiced medicine on Mount Everest, provided relief in Port-au-Prince after a devastating earthquake in Haiti in 2010, and flown search-and-rescue missions with the US military in Afghanistan. — Eric Berger, ArsTechnica, 15 July 2026

Here came a reminder, too, that tournament football can sometimes be won by the best defence rather than the best attack, by the most coherent showing over 90 minutes rather than the most devastating fleeting moments. — Adam Crafton, New York Times, 15 July 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