Devastation

How to spell devastation

11 letters · 4 syllables

How to pronounce devastation

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does devastation mean?

1. nounSevere and widespread destruction or ruin, or the deep distress such ruin causes.

Devastation in a sentence

• The flood left a trail of devastation across the valley.

• News of the layoffs caused devastation among the staff.

Where does devastation come from?

Language of origin: Latin

This word traces back to the Latin verb devastare, meaning 'to lay waste utterly', formed from the intensive prefix de- (here meaning 'completely') and vastare 'to lay waste'. That verb in turn grew from the adjective vastus, which literally meant 'empty', 'desolate', or 'immense', the same root that gives us the modern word 'vast'. The Latin noun form passed into Old French as devastacion before reaching English in the early 1500s. The original sense described the deliberate ruin of land in wartime, and only later softened into the broader idea of overwhelming destruction or emotional ruin we use today. A useful spelling cue is the buried link to 'vast': the empty, laid-waste land at the heart of the word survives right in its middle.

How the word is built

• de- (completely, intensive)
• vast (lay waste, from Latin vastus: empty, desolate)
• -ation (noun-forming suffix)