devastating

1. 1
   adjective

   Causing severe or overwhelming damage, destruction, or distress.

   Like a wildfire that sweeps through and leaves nothing but ash behind.

   The earthquake had a devastating effect on the region's infrastructure.

   Her sudden resignation dealt a devastating blow to the campaign.

   Similarcatastrophic, disastrous, destructive, ruinous, crushing

   Oppositeminor, negligible, harmless, mild

   Note

   Once the participle settles into an adjective, it can be graded: more devastating, most devastating, very devastating. Railway Magazine in 1953 described an "even more widespread and devastating inundation" when Dutch dykes burst, which is the literal flood-and-ruin case. In 2023 Lloyd Austin used it of a war over Taiwan, measured in shipping lanes and supply chains. A quick test against the verb form: the adjective takes very, while the verb takes an object.

2. 2
   verb

   Present participle and gerund of devastate.

   The invasion is devastating the country's historic cities one by one.

   Devastating the local economy, the factory closures left thousands without work.

   Note

   Behind the -ing form stands a verb of wide reach. Devastate can ruin the buildings of a city or the trees of a forest, but it can also demolish a whole set of beliefs or leave a person in intense grief. After be it marks ruin in progress (the war is devastating the region). As a gerund it names the act itself (blamed for devastating the city). Either way it needs an object, which separates it from the gradable adjective.

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