ruin
Pluralruins
Pluralruins
- 1The remaining parts of a destroyed or decaying building, such as a house or castle.
A crumbling ruin stood where the manor house once welcomed guests.
Tourists wander among the ruins of the bombed cathedral.
Similarremains, wreck, shell, relic
Note
Here the word can be counted: a castle is a ruin, and visitors walk among its ruins. Addison uses both forms in one couplet, where 'one promiscuous ruin' covers the place where 'the very ruins lay.' The word also applies to anything wrecked, as in Margery Allingham's 'ruin of a plastic wardrobe.' It works figuratively too, as when a virtuous habit is built 'on the ruins' of a vicious character.
- 2To destroy something or leave it no longer usable or working.
A single power surge can ruin sensitive electronic equipment.
The spilled coffee ruined her laptop completely.
Similardestroy, wreck, damage, break
Note
This physical verb is the one whose past participle most often becomes an adjective: ruined slacks, ruined cities. Longfellow's old men see 'ruined cities in the ashes,' and a ruined city is exactly where the ruins left standing are found, so adjective and noun meet. In everyday use, the object is a thing damaged past repair, from clothing to machinery.
- 3
- 4To make something less enjoyable or likeable than it was.
The constant interruptions ruined the concert for the audience.
A bad attitude can ruin even the most exciting trip.
Similarspoil, wreck, mar, blight
Note
Here the damage is done to someone's experience, not to the thing itself. The song survives intact, but it is ruined for the listener. That is why this sense naturally takes a for-phrase naming whose pleasure was lost: ruin a song for me, ruin the evening for everyone. It sits close to the spoiler sense, where what gets ruined is a story's surprise.
- 5The condition of being destroyed, decayed, or fallen into collapse.
The once-thriving city now lay in ruin after the long siege.
Decades of abandonment brought the mansion to total ruin.
Similardecay, disrepair, dilapidation, destruction, devastation
Note
Here the word names a condition and takes no article: a building falls into ruin, lies in ruin, goes to ruin. That is the quickest way to tell it from the remains themselves, which are counted. A monastery that has fallen into ruin becomes, as a result, a ruin.
- 6Destruction or overthrow; a change that defeats or brings down something.
The general's defeat marked the ruin of the entire kingdom.
Greed and corruption hastened the ruin of the republic.
Similardownfall, fall, collapse, overthrow, destruction
Oppositerise
Note
The reach of this sense is wide: ships, armies, constitutions, governments, health and hopes can all come to ruin. The thing is brought down rather than left standing as rubble, and the usual frame is the ruin of something. Addison's Cato makes it political, cursing the man 'who owes his greatness to his country's ruin.'
- 7To reveal the ending of a story, spoiling it for someone.
A careless tweet ruined the season finale for millions of fans.
Reviewers who ruin major plot twists frustrate their readers.
Similarspoil
- 8A thing or cause that leads someone to serious trouble or destruction.
Drink proved to be the ruin of many talented men.
Her reckless spending was the ruin of the business.
Similardownfall, undoing, bane, destruction, curse
Note
The construction is nearly fixed: something is the ruin of someone, or someone's ruin. Bacon writes that the errors of young men 'are the ruin of business'; in Rinehart and Hopwood's The Bat, women 'were their ruin.' The subject is the cause, such as gambling or a weakness, and the object is what is brought down. The sentence therefore always assigns blame.
- 9The act or process of bringing something to destruction.
Investigators blamed the contractor for the deliberate ruin of the old theater.
His careless words led to the ruin of their long friendship.
Similardestruction, wrecking, demolition, devastation
Oppositepreservation, restoration
- 10Complete loss of one's money or wealth; bankruptcy.
The market crash drove thousands of families to ruin.
One lawsuit was enough to spell ruin for the small firm.
Similarbankruptcy, insolvency, destitution, poverty
Oppositeprosperity, wealth
- 11To cause someone's financial collapse; to bankrupt or drive out of business.
Predatory lenders ruined countless homeowners during the crisis.
A long price war can ruin even established companies.
Similarbankrupt, impoverish, break, beggar
Oppositeenrich
Note
The verb behind financial ruin usually takes a person, family or firm as its object. In speech it is often hyperbolic ('you surely mean to ruin us!'). In Stevenson's Treasure Island, a guest who stays month after month threatens to ruin the household. Dialectal speech has the nonstandard past form ruint for this and the other verb senses. It belongs in dialogue, not in formal writing.
- 12To seduce someone and thereby damage their reputation and social standing.
The novel's villain sets out to ruin an innocent governess and abandon her.
Society whispered that the baronet had ruined more than one maidservant.
Similarseduce, dishonor, disgrace, compromise
Note
The word comes from an older moral code, in which seduction cost a person their reputation and place in society. It belongs to historical writing and period fiction, where the libertine ruins a local girl. In a modern sentence it sounds deliberately old-fashioned or ironic. It is safe when describing the past; applied to the present, it carries that code's judgment with it.
Less common meanings
- 13To fall gradually into a state of decay or collapse.
The manor ruined steadily once its owners departed.
Though he his house of polisht marble build, / Yet shall it ruine like the Moth's fraile cell
1636, George Sandys, Paraphrase upon the Psalmes and upon the Hymnes dispersed throughout the Old and New TestamentsNote
This intransitive verb of slow collapse is no longer used. George Sandys wrote in 1636 that a marble house 'shall ruine like the Moth's fraile cell,' with nothing doing the ruining. Modern English keeps ruin transitive and says instead that a house falls into ruin, borrowing the noun of decay.
- 14An act of falling or tumbling down.
The horseman suffered a heavy ruin when his mount stumbled.
His ruin startled th’ other steeds.
[1611?], Homer, The Iliads of Homer Prince of PoetsNote
This is the oldest picture in the word: Latin ruīna came from ruō, 'I fall down, tumble,' and this sense kept the literal fall. Chapman's translation of the Iliad uses it of a fall that startles the horses: 'His ruin startled th' other steeds.' It is obsolete now, met only in older verse. The later meanings of collapse and overthrow are that fall made figurative.
Showing meanings only.
Practice
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Origin
From Middle English ruyne, borrowed through Old French ruine from Latin ruīna ("overthrow, ruin"), which comes from ruō ("I fall down, tumble, sink in ruin, rush").