Dictionaries › English

destroy

Pronunciation: /dɪˈstɹɔɪ/

The English word “destroy” has 10 meanings listed here.

verb

  1. To damage beyond use or repair; to damage (something) to the point that it effectively ceases to exist.
  2. To neutralize, undo a property or condition.
  3. To put down or euthanize.
  4. To severely disrupt the well-being of (a person); ruin.
  5. To utterly defeat; to crush.
  6. To remove data.
  7. To exhaust completely and thus recreate or build up.
  8. To penetrate sexually in an aggressive way.
  9. To sing a song extremely poorly.
  10. To eat food quickly, hungrily or completely.

Etymology

From Middle English destroyen, from Old French destruire, Vulgar Latin *destrugō, from Classical Latin dēstruō, from dē- (“un-, de-”) + struō (“to build”).

Keep exploring: in the interactive dictionary every word of a definition is a link. Open “destroy” there

More English words

About this dictionary

The English dictionary on Glottosphere has 650,529 entries with a page. Browse the English dictionary.

Definitions are from Wiktionary, extracted by Kaikki.org, and are available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 licence.