NODE / 0180attestedPresent-Day English

decimate

PRONUNCIATION /ˈdɛsəˌmeɪt/

kill every tenth member historically; later destroy or reduce drastically

DATE: 1660–today
SENSE: destroy or reduce
FAMILY: Indo-European / Germanic
CANONICAL KEY: node:1:decimate:attested:sense:destroy-or-reduce

The broader English sense appears by the seventeenth century and is established usage.

ANCESTRAL EDGES

ROOT OF THIS ROOT

GO DEEPERborrowingestablished

Latin · Latin antiquity · take a tenth

decimāre

take a tenth; select every tenth person, including for punishment

SOUND: English decimate is formed on the Latin past-participial stem decimāt-.
MEANING: The exact selection or taxation of a tenth broadens within English to drastic reduction or destruction.
CHRONOLOGY: First-known English use is reported in 1660; broader use follows within decades.
SCHOLAR: Merriam-Webster Editors
CONFIDENCE: established — The broader sense is established English usage, not an etymological error.

Decimate — Word HistorysupportsDid You Know; Word History

Records exact Roman/English tenth-member sense, first use, and early broadening.

ORIGINAL ↗

The Original Definition of DecimatesupportsRegarding the Incorrect Use of Decimate

Explains why the broader English sense is established rather than erroneous.

ORIGINAL ↗

OPEN CANONICAL EDGE 169 ↗

DIRECT DESCENDANT EDGES

THE NEXT HISTORICAL STEP

No reviewed descendants currently reuse this node. Absence describes the graph, not the entire history of the form.

TRANSITIVE DESCENDANT CLOSURE

EVERY REVIEWED BRANCH FROM HERE

This is the complete downstream closure currently supported by the canonical graph. Every displayed step is a real reviewed edge with its own sound claim, meaning claim, scholar, confidence, and citations.

UNIQUE DESCENDANT NODES: 0
REVIEWED EDGES: 0
DEEPEST PATH: 0
MODERN DOSSIERS REACHED: 0

No downstream edge has cleared review for this node. This is a graph-coverage statement, not a claim that the historical form produced nothing.

“Every” means every descendant in the reviewed SET-U graph. It does not convert missing scholarship or missing ingestion into a claim of historical completeness. The coverage ledger remains the honest denominator.

RECORDED EVIDENCE

ATTESTATIONS / FIRST KNOWN USE

SOURCE-REPORTEDlexicographic first useestablished

1660

English lexicographic first-use record for decimate

Source-reported first-use year; no underlying printed witness was directly inspected.

decimate dossier · recorded as decimate

WITNESS RECORD ↗Decimate — Word History ↗

EDITORIAL REUSE

WORD DOSSIERS USING THIS NODE

01decimatedecimate · established