To decimate 

… as in “The Burmese python is decimating native wildlife across their invaded range.” Miami Herald, 12-Jun-2025

People today use “decimate” synonymously with “devastate” and it bugs me.

These two words sound similar, but to “decimate” is to reduce by 1/10^th, not reduce to 1/10^th. 

I’d be thrilled if pythons had only decimated Everglades mammal populations.

Origin – The verb “decimate” dates back to ancient Rome. My high school Latin teacher, Mr. Downum, explained that if a member of the Roman Legion committed a heinous crime, and nobody among the ranks would identify the culprit, all the soldiers were lined up and every tenth one was killed.  Wikipedia provides a similar explanation with more detail and historic record, albeit limited. Decimation didn’t happen a lot after the scary new word got around. The original meaning gave “decimate” the power to change human behavior for the better.

Here are more examples in which over-educated people are decimating the lexical diversity and power of our language:

“The first time I drove into Tuscaloosa after the storms, I had to pull over on the side of the road to take in the decimation and collect myself.”  Joyce Vance, 17-May-2025

“A Fungus Decimated American Bats. Now Scientists Are Fighting Back”  Headline, The New York Times, 17-Sep-2024

“In 1989, Hurricane Hugo decimated much of the remaining old-growth forest that is vital habitat for endangered red-cockaded woodpeckers, Leuconotopicus borealis.” @grrlscientist, 11-Oct-2024

It’s everywhere. Even Heather Cox Richardson and Paul Krugman conflate “decimate” and “devastate”, two erudite professors with a mastery of English.

In a living language, word meanings can change. Still, this one sticks in my craw every time I read it. Seems a shame to lose such a graphic and powerful word to confusion in common parlance.

* * *

I’d tell this to the marsh rabbits in the Everglades, if I could find one to tell. Not that a marsh rabbit ever listened to what I had to say. Not even back in the pre-python glory days, when legions of round-eared bunnies lined up ten feet apart along the swale of the Shark Valley tram road every evening. Had they merely been decimated by Burmese pythons, they’d line up today eleven feet apart. Like coral reefs and trees dripping with migrant warblers, or a savored word that’s lost its meaning to misuse, I miss them.

Grumph, grumph, grumph.

© Philip Stoddard