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Destroy   /dɪstrˈɔɪ/   Listen
verb
Destroy  v. t.  (past & past part. destroyed; pres. part. destroying)  
1.
To unbuild; to pull or tear down; to separate virulently into its constituent parts; to break up the structure and organic existence of; to demolish. "But ye shall destroy their altars, break their images, and cut down their groves."
2.
To ruin; to bring to naught; to put an end to; to annihilate; to consume. "I will utterly pluck up and destroy that nation."
3.
To put an end to the existence, prosperity, or beauty of; to kill. "If him by force he can destroy, or, worse, By some false guile pervert."
Synonyms: To demolish; lay waste; consume; raze; dismantle; ruin; throw down; overthrow; subvert; desolate; devastate; deface; extirpate; extinguish; kill; slay. See Demolish.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Destroy" Quotes from Famous Books



... Cullen, his son the advocate, Dr Adam Fergusson, and Mr Crosbie, advocate. Witchcraft was introduced. Mr Crosbie said, he thought it the greatest blasphemy to suppose evil spirits counteracting the Deity, and raising storms, for instance, to destroy his creatures. JOHNSON. 'Why, sir, if moral evil be consistent with the government of the Deity, why may not physical evil be also consistent with it? It is not more strange that there should be evil spirits, than evil embodied ...
— The Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides with Samuel Johnson, LL.D. • James Boswell

... strange matter, when it leads you to break into a friend's house, assault him and his servants and his guests, and destroy his furniture, in search of a supposed priest whom you have never even seen. Now, sir, if this matter comes to her Grace's ears, I will not answer for the consequences; for you know Mistress Corbet, her lady-in-waiting, is one of ...
— By What Authority? • Robert Hugh Benson

... the general principle that all things are fated to decay (which I noticed in the case of Plato), and that 'as iron produces rust and as wood breeds the animals that destroy it, so every state has in it the seeds of its own corruption.' He is not, however, content to rest there, but proceeds to deal with the more immediate causes of revolutions, which he says are twofold in nature, either ...
— Miscellanies • Oscar Wilde

... is often the habit with us Australians to either destroy or carry away as curiosities, the weapons and other little things that the blacks manufacture, utterly regardless of the loss we thus inflict upon them; for without his weapons the wretched native is not only defenceless against neighbouring tribes, who would ...
— Australian Search Party • Charles Henry Eden

... waters my beans and keeps me in the house today is not drear and melancholy, but good for me too. Though it prevents my hoeing them, it is of far more worth than my hoeing. If it should continue so long as to cause the seeds to rot in the ground and destroy the potatoes in the low lands, it would still be good for the grass on the uplands, and, being good for the grass, it would be good for me. Sometimes, when I compare myself with other men, it seems as if I were more favored by the gods than they, ...
— Walden, and On The Duty Of Civil Disobedience • Henry David Thoreau


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