as in extermination
formal
a usually violent act in which something is damaged or destroyed or in which a person or animal is killed
The town had somehow escaped the depredations of enemy soldiers.
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Recent Examples of depredation
The pack consists of up to 15 wolves of various ages roaming federal public land near an active cattle grazing allotment, where many of the depredation incidents took place, according the memo.
—
John Leos, AZCentral.com, 24 Aug. 2025
Researchers looked at wolf abundance, the number killed in wolf hunting and by government removals, and livestock depredation in those states from 2005 to 2001, and found that the amount of livestock saved by killing a single wolf, roughly equaled 7% of a single cow.
—Nathan Rott, NPR, 21 Aug. 2025
McQueen has claimed that depredations on livestock and pets by wolves in her county have become a public safety concern.
—Dac Collins, Outdoor Life, 14 Aug. 2025
Scientists who study sharks acknowledge that depredation — the act of fish being eaten by an underwater predator while on a fisherman’s line — is a growing concern in some areas, especially Florida.
—Miami Herald, 12 Aug. 2025
John Leos, AZCentral.com, 24 Aug. 2025
Researchers looked at wolf abundance, the number killed in wolf hunting and by government removals, and livestock depredation in those states from 2005 to 2001, and found that the amount of livestock saved by killing a single wolf, roughly equaled 7% of a single cow.
—Nathan Rott, NPR, 21 Aug. 2025
McQueen has claimed that depredations on livestock and pets by wolves in her county have become a public safety concern.
—Dac Collins, Outdoor Life, 14 Aug. 2025
Scientists who study sharks acknowledge that depredation — the act of fish being eaten by an underwater predator while on a fisherman’s line — is a growing concern in some areas, especially Florida.
—Miami Herald, 12 Aug. 2025
Recent Examples of Synonyms for depredation
Noun
-
Yet this divide-and-conquer approach, combined with the relentless attacks on civilians, has also entrenched resistance among ordinary Gazans, who now perceive Israel as undertaking a war of extermination.—
Leila Seurat,
Foreign Affairs,
26 Aug. 2025
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Palestinians and Israeli Jews also came to regard the other side’s actions as fulfillments of their own national nightmares, ethnic cleansing for one and extermination for the other.—
Hussein Agha,
New Yorker,
22 Aug. 2025
Noun
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Critical wildlife habitat may be put at risk for alteration or wholesale destruction.—
Ryan Gellert,
Time,
9 Sep. 2025
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But tenants have little legal footing to stand on in combating that destruction.—
Max Klaver,
Miami Herald,
8 Sep. 2025
Noun
-
Approximately 44% of global reef-building coral species are at risk of extinction due to climate change, the International Union for Conservation of Nature said in its 2024 Red List of Threatened Species.—
Julia Jacobo,
ABC News,
3 Sep. 2025
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Barriers like highways, fencing, border walls and other development projects threaten to leave roaming species without the option to expand, ultimately leading to localized extinction.—
John Leos,
AZCentral.com,
3 Sep. 2025
Noun
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Most effective however is Vanderbilt’s decision to stop the action and simply run the devastating real black-and-white film footage of the slaughter of Jews in the concentration camps.—
Pete Hammond,
Deadline,
7 Sep. 2025
-
Hamas had brutally penetrated our southern border, embarking on the slaughter of civilians.—
Ron Scherf,
Time,
5 Sep. 2025
Noun
-
The genocide allegation also rests on claims that Israel intentionally targeted civilians, but the study acknowledges civilian deaths while finding no evidence of a systematic policy of massacre.—
Amelie Botbol,
FOXNews.com,
3 Sep. 2025
-
The riots in the summer of 2024 had followed a stabbing massacre at a children's dance group in Southport by the teenage son of Rwandan immigrants.—
Shane Croucher,
MSNBC Newsweek,
3 Sep. 2025
Noun
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And that's not where the worst of the devastation lies.—
Amira El-Fekki,
MSNBC Newsweek,
3 Sep. 2025
-
Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring, published in three parts in the magazine in 1962 and later as a book, alerted the country to the devastation of the pesticide DDT and is credited with launching the modern environmental movement.—
Matthew Carey,
Deadline,
1 Sep. 2025
Cite this Entry
“Depredation.” Merriam-Webster.com Thesaurus, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/thesaurus/depredation. Accessed 9 Sep. 2025.
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