Basic Details
Word: Devastate
Part of Speech: Verb
Meaning: To destroy or damage a place very badly; also to make a person extremely shocked and upset.
Synonyms: destroy, ruin, wreck, shatter
Antonyms: restore, rebuild
How to Spell Devastate
Syllables: dev - as - tate
Tricky part: After dev comes as, with an a: dev-as-tate. Students often write devistate or devestate. It ends in tate.
Watch out for: devistate, devestate, devastait
Memory tip: Look for the word vast hiding inside: de-VAST-ate. A vast storm can devastate a whole town.
Usage Examples
Example 1: A strong cyclone can devastate coastal villages in a single night.
Example 2: Swarms of locusts devastated crops in parts of Rajasthan in 2020.
Example 3: Losing the final would devastate the whole team.
Fun Fact
Devastate comes from the Latin devastare, to lay waste. The Latin word vastus, empty or desolate, is also where the English word vast comes from.
Practise the CREST Way
Spell-o-Spell
Choose the correctly spelt word:
a) devastate
b) calamaty
c) disasterous
d) catastrofe
Show answer
a) devastate. Devastate has vast in the middle; calamity, disastrous and catastrophe are all misspelt here.
Word Connection
Choose the synonym of the word: devastate
a) restore
b) repair
c) protect
d) ruin
Show answer
d) ruin. To ruin something is to wreck it completely, just as a flood or fire can devastate it.
Mingle-Mangle
Form a meaningful word from the jumbled letters:
vtaesdtae
a) decimate
b) dictate
c) devastate
d) deviate
Show answer
c) devastate. The s among the letters rules out deviate, decimate and dictate.
Word Cookie
Insert the correct pair of letters to form a word:
dev_st_te
a) a, e
b) i, a
c) e, a
d) a, a
Show answer
d) a, a. Both blanks are a: dev-as-tate.
Multiple Choice Questions
1. A flood that devastates a village ____.
a) cleans its streets
b) makes it bigger
c) brings it good luck
d) destroys much of it
Show answer
d) destroys much of it
2. Which is the noun form of devastate?
a) devastance
b) devastation
c) devastion
d) devastment
Show answer
b) devastation
