How to Use decimate in a Sentence

decimate

verb

• This kind of moth is responsible for decimating thousands of trees in our town.
• Budget cuts have decimated public services in small towns.
• Kudos to him for having the courage to decimate half his team.
  — Rafaela Bassili, Vulture, 28 Oct. 2025
• That, in turn, could decimate backyard gardens and crop yields.
  — Jen Rose Smith, CNN, 7 May 2021
• This same colony of birds was decimated the previous year due to avian flu.
  — Cecilia Rodriguez, Forbes, 23 Sep. 2024
• This fungus can quickly sweep through a vineyard to decimate a crop.
  — Elin McCoy, Fortune Europe, 11 May 2024
• This will decimate several sports, and schools in the district may not even be able to field teams.
  — Jackson Thompson, FOXNews.com, 19 Dec. 2025
• The water crisis a decade ago decimated the city and the schools.
  — John Wisely, Freep.com, 3 Oct. 2025
• The spread of an avian flu virus has decimated flocks of birds (and killed barn cats and other mammals).
  — Arthur Allen, CBS News, 29 May 2024
• The genista broom caterpillar had decimated a plant in record time.
  — Arkansas Online, 23 July 2023
• With bowheads hard to find, whalers turned to walrus, decimating those herds.
  — Nancy Lord, Anchorage Daily News, 19 Oct. 2019
• What has been decimated is the middle.
  — David Remnick, New Yorker, 26 Sep. 2025
• Health care is being decimated right now.
  — ABC News, 1 Mar. 2026
• Napoli, it must be said, arrived in Turin decimated.
  — James Horncastle, New York Times, 26 Jan. 2026
• The blackouts and lack of jet fuel have decimated tourism, a key source of revenue.
  — Kate Linthicum, Los Angeles Times, 16 Mar. 2026
• Resolve not to hide it anymore, and decimate the useless shame holding you back.
  — Arthur C. Brooks, The Atlantic, 12 Nov. 2021
• Not only did the song decimate the Billboard charts and go six-times platinum.
  — cleveland, 12 Aug. 2020
• Prices hit record highs last year amid an avian flu outbreak that decimated the country's poultry flocks.
  — Mary Cunningham, CBS News, 30 June 2026
• Few feral bee colonies have survived the scourge of Varroa mites that can decimate colonies.
  — Denise Coffey, Courant Community, 1 May 2018
• Reed Nichols’ El Cariso home was decimated by the fire.
  — Michael Slaten, Oc Register, 10 Sep. 2025
• Only option is a trade that could decimate the Heat’s younger players.
  — Ira Winderman, Sun Sentinel, 11 July 2022
• Perfect can be the enemy of the good, and good repeated over time is enough to decimate the virus.
  — Andy Larsen, The Salt Lake Tribune, 9 Aug. 2020
• Hezbollah was caught by surprise and decimated in the first attack.
  — Graeme Wood, The Atlantic, 2 Sep. 2025
• As the sanctions decimate oligarchs’ wealth, could that prompt them to abandon Putin or change the course of the war?
  — Stanislav Markus, The Conversation, 4 Mar. 2022
• Their defense, decimated by injuries, was simply not one that was going to take them all the way this year.
  — Ben Standig, The Athletic, 19 Jan. 2025
• But the Wolves are just decimated by injuries now and the Spurs are too good and too locked in to mess around.
  — Jon Krawczynski, New York Times, 1 May 2026
• Both plants and fungi need moisture, but too much moisture can lead to fungal attacks that decimate our plants.
  — David Beaulieu, The Spruce, 28 May 2026
• But McVay has a young team, a team that at one point was decimated by injuries.
  — Sam Farmer, Los Angeles Times, 26 Dec. 2024
• His plan was to smuggle the trunks to northern cities to infect people and decimate Union forces.
  — TIME, 4 May 2024
• More than anything the Dodgers have been decimated with injuries.
  — Bill Madden, New York Daily News, 16 Aug. 2025