More on "decimate"

[Jonathan Lighter]

So the latest is, "to destroy; reduce to rubble":

  2006 Brad Prager in Wilfried Wilms & William Rasch, eds. _Bombs Away!_ (Amsterdam: Rodopi) 25: The destruction of Germany caused by the Air War has been conventionally represented through images of decimated cathedrals and crucifixes skewed in all directions.

  This usage must be stopped because a voice in my brain tells me I've never encountered it before plus it sounds stupid.  Or did I see an example here earlier?

  If so, it still sounds stupid. Brad Prager is Associate Professor of German at the University of Missouri, Columbia.

  JL



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