devastate

Etymology

It is borrowed from Latin dēvāstātus (“laid waste”), the past participle of dēvāstō (“to lay waste”),^[2][3][4][5] from dē-, which the sources read as intensive or as "from, away",^[6][3][5] and vāstō (“to lay waste”), from vāstus (“empty, desolate”), the source of waste.^[6][7][2] The American Heritage Dictionary takes the adjective back to Proto-Indo-European *euə-.^[7] Etymonline and Barnhart also suggest that it may be a back-formation from devastation,^[8][5] recorded from 1461,^[5] and Barnhart sees a possible re-formation of the earlier verb devast, recorded from 1537.^[5][4] That verb is from French dévaster, dated by the OED to 1499, itself from the same Latin verb.^[4][8]

Earliest recorded meaning

To lay waste, to make desolate: 1638, in T. Herbert's Some Yeares Travels.^[4][3] Barnhart dates the verb to 1634,^[5] and Dictionary.com to 1625–35.^[9]

Semantic evolution

Before the 19th century the verb was rare.^[10][11] The OED finds it in Herbert and in Bailey (1727), notes that Johnson did not recognize it in 1755, and finds it apparently not in common use until the 19th century.^[4] In the 17th century the usual form was devast, which Johnson did not recognize either, and which Todd called no longer in use.^[4] The figurative sense, to overwhelm a person with grief or shock, is recorded by 1856,^[8][12] and the adverb devastatingly dates from the early 20th century.^[11]

Timeline

• 1461 – the noun devastation.^[5]
• 1537 – devast, to lay waste.^[4][5]
• 1638 – devastate, to lay waste, to ravage.^[4][3]
• by 1856 – figurative, to overwhelm.^[8]

Meanings

Verb

1. To lay waste; to ravage or destroy a place: The flood devastated the low-lying villages.^[12][3][4]
2. To overwhelm someone with grief or shock: She was devastated by the news of her brother's death.^[12][3][11]

Word family

• devastatingly
• devastation
• devastator
• devastative
• devastating

Related words

• waste
• vast
• devast

References

1. ^ Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
3. ^ a b c d e f Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
4. ^ a b c d e f g h i Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
5. ^ a b c d e f g h Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
6. ^ a b Ayto, John (2005), Word Origins: The Secret Histories of English Words from A to Z, 2nd ed., London: A & C Black
7. ^ a b The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
8. ^ a b c d Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
9. ^ Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House
10. ^ Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
11. ^ a b c Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
12. ^ a b c Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins