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verb

devastate

CEFR B1

cause extensive destruction or ruin utterly

In a sentence

Six example sentences with devastate, each labelled with its topic.

  • A single warm winter devastated the pine stands, letting beetles survive at altitudes that had always killed them.

    Environment

  • The 1666 fire devastated the old city, and four fifths of the wooden buildings inside the walls were gone by morning.

    History

  • A collapse in the single export crop devastated the region, emptying towns that had depended on it for generations.

    Economics

  • The market crash devastated pension funds that had put half their assets into a single sector.

    Finance

  • The hurricane devastated the island's resorts, and the airport stayed closed to visitors for five months.

    Travel

  • A fungus devastated the banana plantations, wiping out the variety that shoppers had known for decades.

    Science

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Found in these word lists

Each source is a published word list that contains devastate. No exam board publishes an official GRE, GMAT or SAT list; GMAT words come from GRE lists and the Academic Word List.