How to Use devastate in a Sentence

devastate

verb

• The flood devastated the town.
• The disease has devastated the area's oak tree population.
• The hurricane left the island completely devastated.
• Hashem was devastated to the point of backing out of the deal.
  — Nate Jackson, Los Angeles Times, 8 June 2023
• Coltrane’s death, in 1967, at the age of forty, devastated the music world.
  — Hua Hsu carlos Chavarría, The New Yorker, 24 Dec. 2019
• In the treeless Aleutians, rats can devastate birds that nest on the ground.
  — Morgan Krakow, Anchorage Daily News, 28 Nov. 2021
• Fueled by substance abuse, the muse will devastate the vessel and wound the soul.
  — Ew Staff, EW.com, 11 Aug. 2020
• Climate change is a real threat to the species as the loss of sea ice will devastate their habitats.
  — Lianne Kolirin, CNN, 5 Aug. 2020
• Their rental house, in South Lake Tahoe, backed up to the forest that had been devastated by the wildfire in 2021.
  — Paige Williams, The New Yorker, 25 Nov. 2024
• The part of the island which includes the historic town Lahaina was devastated by the fires.
  — Analisa Novak, CBS News, 19 Sep. 2023
• Jackson said she is still devastated over the loss of her youngest son.
  — Kelly Davis, The Mercury News, 4 Nov. 2024
• The Coquette’s jealousy leads the Baron, the host of the ball, to stab the Poet; the Sleepwalker, devastated, carries him away.
  — Gia Kourlas, New York Times, 3 Oct. 2023
• The fact of the matter is Lindsay is devastated and I'm crushed with how all this transpired.
  — Bailey Richards, Peoplemag, 9 Nov. 2023
• This week marks three months of war that continues to devastate Gaza as the bodies and rubble pile up in the wake of the Oct. 7 Hamas massacre.
  — TIME, 11 Jan. 2024
• The disease can devastate an entire coral colony in only a few weeks to months.
  — Laura Baisas, Popular Science, 5 June 2025
• Frankenstein the novel is about many things, including the life of the mind and how the human heart divides and devastates us.
  — Mikal Gilmore, Rolling Stone, 31 Oct. 2023
• UConn has a length advantage, but the Bulls have quick guards and can be devastating from the perimeter.
  — Dom Amore, courant.com, 21 Nov. 2019
• Both Israel and Hezbollah have sought to avoid a war that could devastate Lebanon and Israel.
  — Arkansas Online, 5 Aug. 2020
• The fires that devastated the Amazon in the summer of 2019 were no accident.
  — CBS News, 27 Feb. 2020
• No one's talking at this point, but I am devastated by this news.
  — Katherine J Igoe, Marie Claire, 10 Dec. 2019
• And deluges and floods devastated areas around the world.
  — Tom Yulsman, Discover Magazine, 29 Jan. 2024
• He was devastated but didn’t know what else to do other than accept they were lost and move on.
  — Jonathan Edwards, Washington Post, 6 Nov. 2023
• On May 13, we were devastated to hear that the royal family of the Netherlands had sailed to Britain.
  — Smithsonian Magazine, 15 May 2023
• So, when Garcia received the news from the vet in June that Nala had cancer, she was devastated.
  — Jordan Greene, Peoplemag, 13 Aug. 2024
• Coal plants can be the largest employer in a region, and plant closures can devastate the towns and counties that host them.
  — Ryan Randazzo, The Arizona Republic, 8 Oct. 2022
• But cabdrivers say the changes won’t do much for their industry, which has been devastated by Uber and Lyft over the past decade.
  — Mary Wisniewski, chicagotribune.com, 26 Nov. 2019
• More than a decade later, fans of the wildly popular group were devastated to learn of the death of Liam Payne last week at age 31.
  — Katie Atkinson, Billboard, 22 Oct. 2024
• This leaves the band’s fans devastated, including a young boy named Sea (played by Chang).
  — Sara Merican, Deadline, 7 Aug. 2024
• The epidemic has devastated more than 20 species and continues today.
  — Christina Larson, Chicago Tribune, 5 Aug. 2025
• Although the city was devastated after Hurricane Katrina hit the city in the fall of 2005, the store was mainly spared and managed to reopen less than two months later, and today, the business consists of seven neighboring buildings.
  — Jean E. Palmieri, Footwear News, 1 Aug. 2025