lay waste
IdiomsExample Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
The trebuchet was the most fearsome weapon of medieval times, a giant catapult that could lay waste to any fortress by battering its walls with boulders.
From Slate
Nick Cage wrote: “Hopefulness is not a neutral position.... It is adversarial. It is the warrior emotion that can lay waste to cynicism.”
From Los Angeles Times
My life without it is a swirl of forces, leading to natural disasters of impulsivity that often lay waste most acutely in my bank account.
From Salon
It doesn’t feel that righteous, after all, to barrel into an undiscovered place and lay waste to its noble, magical creatures or even its largely sympathetic villains.
From New York Times
Tactical nuclear weapons, as the term implies, are far smaller and less powerful than strategic nuclear armaments such as intercontinental ballistic missiles carrying nuclear payloads that could lay waste to large population centers.
From Los Angeles Times
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
