How to use devastating in a sentence
40 example sentences · adjective
Devastating means causing devastation. Example: “The town was stricken by a devastating earthquake that left many buildings in ruins.”
Examples of devastating by meaning
adjectiveCausing devastation.
- Serious as was the flood damage in England, the bursting of some of the dykes on the coast of Holland resulted in an even more widespread and devastating inundation.1953 April, “Devastation in Holland”, in Railway Magazine, page 217
- Make no mistake: conflict in the Taiwan Strait would be devastating.”2023 June 3, Haley Britzky, Brad Lendon, quoting Lloyd Austin, “Taiwan war would be ‘devastating,’ warns US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin...
More sentences with devastating
- The town was stricken by a devastating earthquake that left many buildings in ruins.From the entry stricken
- Cryptobros have been huffing copious amounts of copium after yesterday's devastating Bitcoin crash.From the entry copium
- The movement on his cutter was devastating.From the entry movement
- The pitcher had a devastating change-up.From the entry change-up
- The ramifications of disinformation spill on to the streets with tangible, often devastating real-world consequences.2023 December 16, Eliot Higgins, “Moment of truth”, in FT Weekend (Life & Arts section), London: The Financial Times Ltd., →ISSN, →OCLC…. From the entry open-source
- The coronapocalypse has been devastating for us adults, but its impact on teenagers is arguably far greater.2020 April 6, Christopher Null, “The Reality of Covid-19 Is Hitting Teens Especially Hard”, in Wired. From the entry coronapocalypse
- His writing about the shattering nature of syphilis is both devastating and a bit sly.2019 November 8, Dwight Garner, “From Nabokov and Lawrence, Giants of 20th-Century Fiction, New Volumes of Nonfiction”, in New York Times. From the entry rugburn
- A great victory is made and, with it, a devastating loss.2014, Nicole R. Dickson, Here and Again. From the entry queersome
- Two years ago a pair of scientists sparked fears of a devastating virus.2013 August 10, “Damned if you don’t”, in The Economist, volume 408, number 8848. From the entry ago
- It’s a change that takes millions of years, although from her P.O.V. it happens with devastating rapidity.2009, George Mann, editor, The Solaris Book of New Science Fiction, Solaris, →ISBN, page 273. From the entry p.o.v.
- In defensive wars, they execute devastating preemptive strikes hours before the enemy's own attacks.2008, BioWare, Mass Effect, Redwood City: Electronic Arts, →ISBN, →OCLC, PC, scene: Salarians: Military Doctrine Codex entry. From the entry preemptive strike
- Hurricanes, though wickedly devastating, give you about a month to get the hizzle out of the way.2008, Doug Giles, If You're Going Through Hell, Keep Going, ReadHowYouWant, →ISBN, page 16. From the entry hizzle
- It is only devastating because we are invested in the illusion of foreverness.2006, Fran Harris, Will the Real You Please Stand Up?, page 166. From the entry foreverness
- Over time, parosmia seems to lose its devastating effect on quality of life.2005, B. N. Landis, T. Hummell, J.-S. Lacroix, “Basic and Clinical Aspects of Olfaction”, in J. D. Pickard, editor, Advances and Technical…. From the entry parosmia
- When compared with crystal and its devastating effects, poppers was a relatively mild threat.2005, The Advocate, numbers 942-953, page 2. From the entry poppers
- It may also make potential investors reticent to invest given its potentially devastating dilutory effect.2003, Mark Fecenko, Anita M. Huntley, E-commerce: Corporate-commercial Aspects, Markham, Ont.: LexisNexis Canada, page 394. From the entry dilutory
- There had been devastating, but fortunately isolated, terrorist attacks in Africa and in Oklahoma City.2001, Barbara Olson, “The Final Frenzy: Finishing Touches on the Legend”, in The Final Days: The Last, Desperate Abuses of Power by the…. From the entry take the helm
- But most school magazines I have seen are devastating examples of uneducation.1964, New Society, volume 4, page 25. From the entry uneducation
- In the summer, 90 deg. was common, and the attacks of the vicious black-fly were devastating.1959 March, “New railways in Quebec”, in Railway Magazine, page 202. From the entry black fly
- A devastating collision on I-95 Tuesday afternoon prompted an overnight shutdown of the interstate’s southbound lanes near Yemassee.2025 July 23, Evan McKenna, “2 dead in large-scale I-95 crash near Yemassee; southbound lanes shuttered overnight”, in Yahoo! News. From the entry Yemassee
- The pandemic preparation timebomb detonated to devastating effect; a number of other timebombs are on the shortest of fuses.2023 June 30, Marina Hyde, “The tide is coming in fast on Rishi Sunak – and it’s full of sewage”, in The Guardian. From the entry time bomb
- A pyrrhic victory is a victory that comes with such devastating cost that ultimately nullifies the victory that has been achieved.2015, Dag Heward-Mills, A Good General, Dag Heward-Mills, →ISBN. From the entry pyrrhic
- On the other hand, schools have seen the very real and devastating effects of classmates wielding words like weapons.2011 September 15, Lisa Belkin, “Preschoolers, Name Calling and the Authorities”, in The New York Times, New York, N.Y.: The New York…. From the entry name calling
- The next virus may be devastating to their PC's, but Generation Zed needs to develop a vision of their destiny.2004, Joyce Anderson, “Educating generation Zzz ...”, in Phi Kappa Phi Forum, volume 84, number 4. From the entry Generation Zed
- To deprive a teenage girl of a phone is devastating.2003, Tom McMahon, Teen Tips: A Practical Survival Guide For Parents With Kids 11-19. From the entry unplugging
- Indeed, the far more devastating AIDS epidemic in East and Central Africa is being spread almost exclusively through "normal" heterosexual intercourse.1986 December 21, F. Jay Deacon, “Emotionally-Laden Prejudice”, in Gay Community News, volume 14, number 23, page 4. From the entry unpardonably
- I had never read a more devastating review from Jean Riverton—or, come to think of it, anyone—in my entire life.1981, Ed McBain [pseudonym; Evan Hunter], Rumpelstiltskin (Matthew Hope), New York, N.Y.: The Viking Press, →ISBN, page 118. From the entry pentagenarian
- The storm has been brewing for several weeks, and will not reach multiversally devastating proportions for a few months.1980, TSR, Frank Mentzer, Dungeons & Dragons 1st Edition: The Immortal Storm Complete, Rainbow Communications, →ISBN, page 25. From the entry multiversally
- A devastating creature who spells it with two d’s.1929, Patrick Hamilton, Rope, New York City: Samuel French, Act I, page 30. From the entry d
- Mother Earth, at their devastating touch, falls into a death-like swoon—her green mantle overlaid by a dust-coloured shroud.1924, Victor Branford, Living Religions: A Plea for the Larger Modernism, page 47. From the entry death-like
- Mother Earth, at their devastating touch, falls into a death-like swoon — her green mantle overlaid by a dustcoloured shroud.1923, The Visva-bharati Quarterly - Volume 1, page 158. From the entry dustcoloured
- The Triassic immediately followed a devastating mass extinction, and the cynodonts diversified in its aftermath in much the same way mammals did in the Paleocene.2022, Thomas Halliday, Otherlands, Penguin, published 2023, page 160. From the entry cynodont
- Schools across the country are moving to ban the school run amid growing concern about the devastating impact of air pollution on young people’s health.2018 July 13, Matthew Taylor, The Guardian. From the entry pollution
- But the will to live, the will to achieve, was still strong, and with devastating suddenness it rebelled against the inevitability of the boning.2018, Arthur W. Upfield, The Bone is Pointed, →ISBN. From the entry boning
- After all, in addition to performing the assignment excellently you have brought jobs, activity, and innovation to your village following decades of devastating peasanthood.2018, Tsitsi Dangarembga, This Mournable Body, Faber & Faber (2020), page 342. From the entry peasanthood
- Relatively advanced Haskellers might find the exports of default Prelude lacking or even devastating: encouraging the use of String, asynchronous exceptions (error), and partial functions.2016, Samuli Thomasson, Haskell High Performance Programming, Packt Publishing Ltd, →ISBN, page 363. From the entry Haskeller
- As we have seen, even a hundred years ago icestorms could have a devastating effect on electric service in a major metropolitan area.2015, Jerry Hill, Kentucky Weather. From the entry icestorm
- There have been suggestions by a number of American neoconservative hawks to denuke Iran with “swift, massive, devastating force that decapitates the regime.2014, Jahangir Amuzegar, The Islamic Republic of Iran: Reflections on an Emerging Economy. From the entry neoconservative
Meaning of devastating
- adjective Causing devastation.
Questions about devastating in a sentence
- How do you use devastating in a sentence?
- Devastating is used as an adjective. For example: “The town was stricken by a devastating earthquake that left many buildings in ruins.”
- What is a short sentence with devastating?
- “The pitcher had a devastating change-up.”
- What does devastating mean?
- Devastating means causing devastation.
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: devastating (page history and authors) and the entries each sentence comes from. Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws chose the sentences, left out offensive ones and quotations older than 1900, and marked the word in each. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.
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Cite this page: “How to use devastating in a sentence.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/sentences/devastating. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.
