MEANING
1. An act of stealing and destroying, especially through raids or predatory attacks.
2. Damage or loss inflicted by something harmful, often gradually or repeatedly.
Use it for
describing destruction caused by raiding; showing a place damaged by predatory exploitation; connecting plunder with the harm it leaves behindDistinguishes predatory destruction from the wider damage inflicted by time, disease, or repeated harmful forces. Writing functions: Decay / Destructive forces.
Words that belong together
- the depredations of raiders
- suffer depredations
- depredations against coastal settlements
On the page
The border villages still bore the marks of the raiders’ depredations.
Every winter brought fresh depredations against the unguarded stores.
The carved faces had survived fire but not the slower depredations of time.
He covered the mirror, unwilling to study the depredations of the illness.
Word forms
- Base
- depredation
Usage notes
Noun, commonly plural depredations for destructive acts or effects; uncountable depredation also occurs. Singular: a depredation. Register: formal. Commonness: uncommon (qualitative editorial estimate, informed by dictionaries/corpus).
Practice this word in a sentenceYour margin notes
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