Word of the Week (WOW) is a weekly meme created by Heena Rathore P. It’s a fun way to improve vocabulary by learning new words every week.

To participate, simply do a post with your word and leave the link as a comment on Heena’s WOW post.

Here is my WOW for this week:

devastating

Word: devastating

Part Of Speech: adjective ; verb ; devastate; adverb: devastatingly; noun: devastation,devastator; adjective: devastative,

Pronunciation: [dev–uh-stey-ting]

Meaning: extremely effective in a destructive way, causing severe shock, distress, or grief,

Synonyms: destructive, ruinous, disastrous, catastrophic,calamitous, cataclysmic

Word Origin: mid 17th century: from Latin devastat- ‘laid waste’, from the verb devastare, from de- ‘thoroughly’ + vastare ‘lay waste’.

Antonyms: blessed, fortunate

Use in sentence:

His decision has been devastating to our department.
When sea levels rise rapidly, as they have been doing, even a small increase can have devastating effects on coastal habitats.
More than nine months after the country’s devastating earthquake, a cholera epidemic has sickened thousands.

If you’d like to check out more interesting words then visit Heena’s page:

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