Word of the Day

: December 14, 2009

depredate

verb DEP-ruh-dayt

What It Means

1 : to lay waste : plunder, ravage

2 : to engage in plunder

depredate in Context

“[O]ne of our party, after being asked by the owner to help depredate a few of the green, squawky birds at a feedlot, took 4 shots and killed over one hundred.” (The Bakersfield Californian, August 16, 2008)

Did You Know?

"Depredate" derives primarily from the Latin verb "praedari," meaning "to plunder," an ancestor to our words "predator" and "prey." First appearing in English in the 17th century, the word most commonly appears in contexts relating to nature and ecology, where it is often used to describe the methodical, almost automatic destruction of life. That’s how the film critic Stanley Kauffman, for example, summarized the plot of the famous horror movie Jaws (1975): “A killer shark depredates the beach of an island summer resort. Several people are killed. Finally, the shark is killed. That's the story.”