Definition of "devastate" []

• To lay waste; destroy. (verb-transitive)
• To overwhelm; confound; stun: was devastated by the rude remark. (verb-transitive)

American Heritage(R) Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright (c) 2011 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

• "Bubonic plague, a disease which at intervals has swept over the whole world, familiar to all who recall their history as the terrible Black Death of Europe and the plague described by Pepys and Defoe, will never again devastate the more civilized portions of the earth."
• "Maroni says he asked the European Union for emergency to intervene because "there is an institutional and political earthquake" underway in Tunisia that could "devastate" Europe."
• "Failure by rich donor countries to provide fresh resources for a fund to help poor countries would "devastate" the fight against global poverty, the president of the World Bank has warned."