How to Use destroy in a Sentence

destroy

verb
  • The bomb blast destroyed the village.
  • The disease destroys the body's ability to fight off illness.
  • The dog had to be destroyed since its owner could not prevent it from attacking people.
  • All the files were deliberately destroyed.
  • Eventually our problems with money destroyed our marriage.
  • Seoul is destroyed, and maybe the rest of South Korea, too.
    Owen Gleiberman, Variety, 11 Nov. 2023
  • About 10% of the homeless had lived on boats that were destroyed.
    Lane Degregory, Sun Sentinel, 28 Apr. 2023
  • Just don't call it a deal:U.S.-Iran pact: Trump destroyed it.
    Kim Hjelmgaard, USA TODAY, 18 Apr. 2024
  • One of the 10 guns had been destroyed, his lawyer Kate Mangles told the court last month.
    Nancy Dillon, Rolling Stone, 7 Dec. 2023
  • The cathedral has been closed since 2019, when a large fire destroyed parts of it.
    Julia Binswanger, Smithsonian Magazine, 13 Sep. 2024
  • Schwing: The storm didn’t just destroy boats and motors.
    Emily Schwing, Scientific American, 14 Dec. 2022
  • The premise: Earth is destroyed by aliens, and a few survivors need to start over and get it right this time.
    Matthew Gilbert, BostonGlobe.com, 8 May 2023
  • The first item of their agenda was to defend their country and to destroy Hamas.
    Isaac Chotiner, The New Yorker, 22 Nov. 2023
  • The two never spoke again, and Albin destroyed all the letters Reed had sent her over the years.
    Will Hermes, New York Times, 22 Sep. 2023
  • Poseidon is not a first strike weapon that will destroy U.S. cities out of the blue.
    Kyle Mizokami, Popular Mechanics, 17 Jan. 2023
  • And even if they’re destroyed, people would rather be in their homes than be refugees.
    IEEE Spectrum, 29 May 2024
  • The dynamic duo of Hill and Waddle played well but didn’t destroy the Browns.
    Ashley Bastock, cleveland, 13 Nov. 2022
  • It can be used not just to destroy meaning but to find it, create it, share it.
    Hasan Altaf, New York Times, 16 May 2023
  • That would destroy me to leave my children at this moment in their lives.
    Rania Aniftos, Billboard, 18 Dec. 2023
  • The freeze damaged and destroyed a number of the early flowers.
    Devon M. Sayers, CNN, 5 June 2023
  • Cars all along the street completely destroyed as well.
    ABC News, 8 Oct. 2023
  • Scores of businesses were damaged, and the town’s Little League field and a new skate park were destroyed.
    Lisa Rathke, Anchorage Daily News, 12 July 2023
  • The stakes are high in this installment, when the Guardians embark on a mission that could destroy their team-up.
    Jennifer M. Wood, WIRED, 30 Dec. 2022
  • The accident destroyed a large section of the bridge, killing a total of 35 people.
    Zachary Folk, Forbes, 27 Mar. 2024
  • About 90% of the homes on the nation’s Union Island are damaged or destroyed, Gonsalves said.
    Elizabeth Wolfe, CNN, 2 July 2024
  • The incident that followed would be the first of many to slowly destroy what was then Bentonville.
    Randy McCrory, Arkansas Online, 3 Aug. 2023
  • In these grand entrances, the wrestlers tend to destroy a lot of things while the audience screams — much like Elon Musk’s first week at Twitter.
    Kylie Robison, Fortune, 9 Nov. 2022
  • Luke Skywalker was prophesied to destroy the Sith and bring balance to the force.
    Eric Lagatta, USA TODAY, 4 May 2024
  • And nonstop joy would, surely, destroy your dopamine receptors.
    Daisy Jones, Vogue, 27 Dec. 2024
  • The collateral damage has typically been deemed worth it though, because when a treatment works, the cancer is destroyed and the patient lives.
    Michael Franco, New Atlas, 26 Dec. 2024

Some of these examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'destroy.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.

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