Where does “decimate” come from?
Decimate comes from Latin decimare, from decimus meaning tenth, ultimately from Proto-Indo-European déḱm̥ meaning ten.
decimate (English): To kill one-tenth of a group, as a military...
Definitions
- To kill one-tenth of a group, as a military...
Ancestry of “decimate”, step by step
| Step | Language | Word | Meaning |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Latin | decimatus | decimated |
| 2 | Latin | decimō | to decimate (select every tenth person for punishment) |
| 3 | Latin | Decimus | originally used for a tenth-born son |
| 4 | Latin | decem | ten; 10 |
| 5 | Latin | -nus | -an |
| 6 | Proto-Italic | -nos | Creates verbal adjectives from verb stems |
| 7 | Proto-Indo-European | -nós | Creates verbal adjectives from roots |