decimate

[thanate]

For troyfish and grauwulf and anyone else liable to find it interesting: (and my computer dictionary is mean and won't let me select and copy text, so this may be abbreviated somewhat...)

definition 2 (historical) kill one in every ten of (a group of soldiers or others) as a punishment for the whole group.

Originally applied to a punishment for mutinous Roman Legions, but became generalized as a punishment for a group of people, or merely to kill one in ten people (as in "the virus decimated the population") before being skewed into the modern sense of destroying a large percentage of something. Purists believe that it should only be applied to people, and one can not decimate crops for instance. Originally used in English to refer to a tithe, and later to Cromwell's tax on Royalists. (er?) Even in the modern skewed sense of drastic reduction of forces, it doesn't mean "destroy utterly." (did anyone think that?)

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So in other words, I am a bad classics major, and while I may have remembered my numbers right, I'd forgotten the punishment bit entirely. Sorry about that. (what was that I was saying about not listening to me when I'm wrong?)

Comments

[stanci.livejournal.com]

You've a better computer dictionary than me *pout*
Marrion-Webster has a definition that is "to reduce drastically especially in number", which while not "destroy utterly" generally brings to mind more than a 10% reduction in force.

[thanate.livejournal.com]

System X.4 has a program called dashboard that starts up with the finder and has a variety of little programs in it, including one that identifies itself as "Oxford American Dictionaries." It's actually the only thing I consistently use from dashboard (they've got all sorts of other things, from weather forecast to another clock (why do I need that when there's one in the menu bar?) and you can download a whole bunch of specialized ones) but it's incredibly useful to have a relatively good dictionary running at all times. Complete with decent etymologies... I'm a fan.

definitions one and two are along the lines of "reduced in number" which is the standard modern meaning-- I would have to go check the OED downstairs to tell you when the shift occurred, but I think by "historical" they more or less mean "obsolete (in modern usage)"

[stanci.livejournal.com]

I miss being able to check things on the OED... I can't sneak usage of the online version at UVA anymore :(

[thanate.livejournal.com]

this is a hidden advantage to having a mother who was a librarian, and having ended up back at home... we've got the 2-volume version downstairs (on the shelf above my father's 1894 Encyclopaedia Brittanica). I know someone who's got the one volume version, which is 8 pages printed on one and is literally impossible to read without the magnifying glass they include...