| 释义 |
▪ I. † ˈdecimate, n. Obs.
[ad. med.L. decimāt-us tithing, area whence tithe is collected, f. L. decimāre to tithe.]
Tithing, tithe.
1641Heywood Reader here, etc. 1 That not with their due Decimates content Both Tythe and Totall must encrease their rent?
▪ II. decimate, v.|ˈdɛsɪmeɪt|
[f. L. decimā-re to take the tenth, f. decim-us tenth: see -ate3. Cf. F. décimer (16th c.).]
†1. To exact a tenth or a tithe from; to tax to the amount of one-tenth. Obs. In Eng. Hist., see decimation 1.
1656in Blount Glossogr. 1657Major-Gen. Desbrowe Sp. in Parlt. 7 Jan., Not one man was decimated but who had acted or spoken against the present government. 1667Dryden Wild Gallant ii. i, I have heard you are as poor as a decimated Cavalier. 1670Penn Lib. Consc. Debated Wks. 1726 I. 447 The insatiable Appetites of a decimating Clergy. 1738Neal Hist. Purit. IV. 96 That all who had been in arms for the king..should be decimated; that is pay a tenth part of their estates. a1845[see decimated].
†2. To divide into tenths, divide decimally. Obs.
1749Smethurst in Phil. Trans. XLVI. 22 The Chinese..are so happy as to have their Parts of an Integer in their Coins, &c. decimated.
3. Milit. To select by lot and put to death one in every ten of (a body of soldiers guilty of mutiny or other crime): a practice in the ancient Roman army, sometimes followed in later times.
1600J. Dymmok Treat. Ireland (1843) 42 All..were by a martiall courte condemned to dye, which sentence was yet mittigated by the Lord Lieutenants mercy, by which they were onely decimated by lott. 1651Reliq. Wotton. 30 In Ireland..he [Earl of Essex] decimated certain troops that ran away, renewing a peece of the Roman Discipline. 1720Ozell Vertot's Rom. Rep. I. iii. 185 Appius decimated, that is, put every Tenth Man to death among the Soldiers. 1840Napier Penins. War VI. xxii. v. 293 The soldiers could not be decimated until captured. 1855Macaulay Hist. Eng. IV. 577 Who is to determine whether it be or be not necessary..to decimate a large body of mutineers?
4. transf.
a. To kill, destroy, or remove one in every ten of.
b. rhetorically or loosely. To destroy or remove a large proportion of; to subject to severe loss, slaughter, or mortality.
1663J. Spencer Prodigies (1665) 385 The..Lord..sometimes decimates a multitude of offenders, and discovers in the personal sufferings of a few what all deserve. 1812W. Taylor in Monthly Rev. LXXIX. 181 An expurgatory index, pointing out the papers which it would be fatiguing to peruse, and thus decimating the contents into legibility. 1848C. Brontë Let. in Mrs. Gaskell Life 276 Typhus fever decimated the school periodically. 1875Lyell Princ. Geol. II. iii. xlii. 466 The whole animal Creation has been decimated again and again. 1877Field Killarney to Golden Horn 340 This conscription weighs very heavily on the Mussulmen..who are thus decimated from year to year. 1883L. Oliphant Haifa (1887) 76 Cholera..was then decimating the country.
Hence ˈdecimated, ˈdecimating ppl. adjs.
1661Middleton Mayor of Q. Pref., Now whether this magistrate fear'd the decimating times. 1667,1670[see 1]. a1845Syd. Smith Wks. (1850) 688 The decimated person. |