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Decimation

noun

Definitions

Noun
  1. 1
    The killing or punishment of every tenth person, usually by lot. Ancient-Rome, countable, uncountable

    "By decimation and a tythed death; / If thy Reuenges hunger for that Food, / Which Nature loathes, take thou the deſtin'd tenth, […]"

  2. 2
    destroying or killing a large part of the population wordnet
  3. 3
    The killing or destruction of any large portion of a population. countable, uncountable

    "And the vvhole Army had cauſe to enquire into their own Rebellions, vvhen they ſavv the Lord of Hoſts, vvith a dreadful Decimation, taking off ſo many of our Brethren by the vvorſt of Executioners."

  4. 4
    A tithe or the act of tithing. countable, uncountable
  5. 5
    The creation of a new sequence comprising only every nth element of a source sequence. countable, uncountable
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  1. 6
    The creation of a new sequence comprising only every nth element of a source sequence.; A digital signal-processing technique for reducing the number of samples in a discrete-time signal; downsampling countable, uncountable

Etymology

Borrowed from Latin decimātiō, a punishment where every 10th man in a unit would be stoned to death by the men who were spared. Used by the Romans to keep order in their military. Compare septimation and vicesimation.

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