depredation

noun

Definition of depredationnext
as in extermination
formal a usually violent act in which something is damaged or destroyed or in which a person or animal is killed The town had somehow escaped the depredations of enemy soldiers.

Synonyms & Similar Words

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Antonyms & Near Antonyms

Examples Sentences

Recent Examples of Synonyms for depredation
  1. destruction
  2. extinction
  3. slaughter
  4. massacre
Noun
  • The facts are clear: Marylanders stand to gain no benefit from this proposal, yet our state will bear the brunt of its environmental destruction and economic damage to agritourism and farming, our top Maryland industry.
    Reader Commentary, Baltimore Sun, 20 Dec. 2024
  • The Season 4 finale ended with Vecna opening a gate to the Upside Down, leading to mass destruction in Hawkins.
    Denise Petski, Deadline, 20 Dec. 2024
Definition of destruction
Noun
  • According to an assessment by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, the Western monarch population has plummeted by more than 95% since the 1980s, and has a 99% chance of extinction by 2080.
    Fidel Martinez, Los Angeles Times, 20 Dec. 2024
  • Like mammoths, mastodons disappeared toward the end of the last ice age, when a series of factors, including climate change and human hunting, drove many large animals to extinction, as Jess Thomson reports for Newsweek.
    Margherita Bassi, Smithsonian Magazine, 19 Dec. 2024
Definition of extinction
Noun
  • That's despite most packing and slaughter jobs paying less than $20 an hour, on average, per government data.
    Ben Berkowitz, Axios, 17 Dec. 2024
  • Just last week, a gang leader ordered the slaughter of more than 200 people in one of Port-au-Prince’s poorest neighborhoods in an attack that targeted voodoo priests.
    Leonard Greene, New York Daily News, 15 Dec. 2024
Definition of slaughter
Noun
  • The massacre, which took place in March, killed at least 145 people and wounded more than 500.
    Anna Nemtsova, The Atlantic, 27 Dec. 2024
  • The Front Man oversees all of the Squid Game workers, making sure everything runs smoothly in what is essentially a series of massacres.
    Kayti Burt, TIME, 24 Dec. 2024
Definition of massacre
Examples are automatically compiled from online sources to show current usage. Read More Opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback.

Thesaurus Entries Near depredation

depredating

depredation

depredations

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Cite this Entry

“Depredation.” Merriam-Webster.com Thesaurus, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/thesaurus/depredation. Accessed 30 Dec. 2024.

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