lay waste

Example Sentences

Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.

Flash droughts, the kind that arrive quickly and can lay waste to crops in a matter of weeks, are becoming more common and faster to develop around the world, and human-caused climate change is a major reason, a scientific study has found.

From New York Times

The armed forces, under the leadership of a newly appointed army commander, provided food and medical supplies, while newly empowered environmental agents destroyed illegal gold mining camps that lay waste to the rivers and forest, and expelled miners from the Indigenous territory.

From Seattle Times

This dehumanizing hostility, this “othering” of the enemy, enabled the cruelty of Operation Ranch Hand, first authorized by President John F. Kennedy in 1961 and made fully operational four years later, a campaign that “was something without precedent in history, using all the tools of science, technology and airpower to lay waste to a country’s natural environment.”

From Washington Post

In cases in which victims realized Patterson’s intentions were criminal rather than sexual, Ceballos said, he would threaten them or claim he had accomplices waiting outside who would lay waste to their homes if they didn’t comply.

From Los Angeles Times

In the past week, two white supremacists, one of them a neo-Nazi, were indicted by a grand jury for allegedly plotting attacks on five power stations in a bid to "lay waste" to the city of Baltimore.

From Salon