The word “decimate” in its most literal sense means to reduce by a factor of ten. “The previous record of initial jobless claims was decimated by this week’s statistics.” After the recession that followed the housing collapse of 2008, initial jobless claims totaled around 695,000. That record was eclipsed tenfold this week with initial jobless claims totaling around 6,648,000.
Practically speaking, the word “decimate” is used metaphorically almost every time it is invoked. Even in the above example, while eerily close to being exact, the new initial jobless claims figure doesn’t quite decimate the old record. “Decimate” has at its root a mathematical expression, and mathematics is predicated on precision. While this week’s initial jobless claims number doesn’t precisely decimate the old record, it dwarfs it to a rate that makes the use of “decimate” perfectly appropriate here.
Were its usage restricted only to matters of moving the decimal point to the left (notice the identical root word in “decimal”), it would hardly get used at all. It’s perfectly acceptable to use “decimate” in the context of “by a large amount,” and in most dictionaries, indeed serves as the primary definition.
