destroy

1. 1.

   do away with, cause the destruction or undoing of

   “The fire destroyed the house”

   Synonymsdestruct

   Broaderunmake

   Narrowerkillextinguishself-destructdestructendfracturewipe outinterdictdemolishdisassemble
2. 2.

   destroy completely; damage irreparably

   “You have ruined my car by pouring sugar in the tank!”

   “The tears ruined her make-up”

   Synonymsruin

   Narrowerburnlay waste toharrybreakvandalizedo a job onsubvertgetdevourrape
3. 3.

   defeat soundly and humiliatingly

   “The home team demolished the visitors”

   Synonymsdemolish

   Broaderget the better of

   Narrowersmashswallowcut to ribbons
4. 4.

   put (an animal) to death

   “The customs agents destroyed the dog that was found to be rabid”

   “the sick cat had to be put down”

   Synonymsput down

   Broaderkill

Other forms of destroy

past tense

destroyed·

present participle

destroying·

third person

destroys·

Forms marked · are formed by the regular rule rather than recorded in the source data. English keeps a few hundred irregulars and the rest follow the pattern, so the rule is right far more often than not — but it is a rule, and the mark says so.

Questions about destroy

What does destroy mean?

destroy means "do away with, cause the destruction or undoing of". That is the primary sense; the word has 4 in total, listed in full on this page.

How many syllables are in destroy?

destroy has 2 syllables: de-stroy. The stress falls on "stroy". In IPA it is /dɪˈstɹɔɪ/.

What is another word for destroy?

Close synonyms include destruct, ruin, demolish, put down. Each sense on this page lists its own synonyms, because a word with several meanings rarely has one substitute that works for all of them.

Is destroy a common word?

destroy is banded "Core" — among the few thousand words that carry most english. The band comes from how often the word appears in a large corpus of everyday English, not from an editor's impression.