as in extermination
formal
a usually violent act in which something is damaged or destroyed or in which a person or animal is killed
The town had somehow escaped the depredations of enemy soldiers.
Synonyms & Similar Words
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Antonyms & Near Antonyms
Example Sentences
Recent Examples of Synonyms for depredation
Noun
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Now, some say artificial intelligence is ushering in a new era of creative destruction – but what exactly is being creatively destroyed, and what’s replacing it?—
Joe McKendrick,
Forbes.com,
20 May 2025 -
Nineteen months of war, triggered by the October 7, 2023 Hamas attacks that killed approximately 1,200 people inside Israel and took some 250 captive, has resulted in over 50,000 Palestinian deaths and the destruction of much of Gaza—including the systems that fed residents during previous wars.—
Juwayriah Wright,
Time,
19 May 2025
Noun
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The researchers’ hauls add to a growing body of evidence from Maine to Florida that Atlantic sturgeon are slowly staging a comeback since overfishing brought them to the edge of extinction in the U.S. during the 20th century.—
Benjamin Cassidy,
Smithsonian Magazine,
29 May 2025
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In comparison with background levels of extinction, all of our sources said that current extinction rates are much higher.—
Lauren Leffer,
Popular Science,
29 May 2025
Noun
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Criticism over big business moves In the decades that followed, Ramaphosa went from a union leader to a corporate board member implicated in stoking the slaughter of striking workers.—
Cybele Mayes-Osterman,
USA Today,
23 May 2025
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He was made to watch what Trump took to be evidence that the South African government was presiding over the slaughter of white Afrikaners.—
Jonny Steinberg,
Time,
22 May 2025
Noun
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Breivik refers to Anders Behring Breivik, who killed 77 people in a massacre in Norway in 2011 that targeted mostly teenagers at a camp.—
Evan Mealins,
USA Today,
25 May 2025
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Israel-Palestine sharpened the divide: Hamas’s Oct. 7 massacre re-traumatized a community still marked by the Shoah, even as images of Gazan suffering resonated with Black memories of state violence.—
Ed Gaskin,
Boston Herald,
24 May 2025
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Cite this Entry
“Depredation.” Merriam-Webster.com Thesaurus, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/thesaurus/depredation. Accessed 3 Jun. 2025.
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