Emily Dickinson Lexicon

DE-STROY', v.t. [L. destruo; de and struo, to pile, to build; Fr. detruire; It. distruggere; Sp. and Port. destruir. See Structure.]

1. To demolish; to pull down; to separate the parts of an edifice, the union of which is necessary to constitute the thing; as, to destroy a house or temple; to destroy a fortification.
2. To ruin; to annihilate a thing by demolishing or by burning; as, to destroy a city.
3. To ruin; to bring to naught; to annihilate; as, to destroy a theory or scheme; to destroy a government; to destroy influence.
4. To lay waste; to make desolate. Go up against this land, and destroy it. – Is. xxxvi.
5. To kill; to slay; to extirpate; applied to men or other animals. Ye shall destroy all this people. – Num. xxxii. All the wicked will he destroy. – Ps. cxlv.
6. To take away; to cause to cease; to put an end to; as, pain destroys happiness. That the body of sin might be destroyed. – Rom. vi.
7. To kill; to eat; to devour; to consume. Birds destroy insects. Hawks destroy chickens.
8. In general, to put an end to; to annihilate a thing, or the form in which it exists. An army is destroyed by slaughter, rapture, or dispersion; a forest, by the ax, or by fire; towns, by fire or inundation, &c.
9. In chimistry, to resolve a body into its parts or elements.