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Aiming or willing to destroy; implacable; desperately hostile; flagitious; as, deadly enemies. Thy assailant is quick, skillful, and deadly. Shak.

Personified: The destroyer of life, -- conventionally represented as a skeleton with a scythe. Death! great proprietor of all. Young. And I looked, and behold a pale horse; and his name that at on him was Death. Rev. vi. 8.

A mortal or crushing blow; a stroke or event which kills or destroys. The deathblow of my hope. Byron.

To destroy. [Obs.] Shak.

To destroy a considerable part of; as, to decimate an army in battle; to decimate a people by disease.

hich ought to be hung up in the nursery of every king, and blazoned on the porch of every royal palace. Buckle.

To destroy or mar the face or external appearance of; to disfigure; to injure, spoil, or mar, by effacing or obliterating important features or portions of; as, to deface a monument; to deface an edifice; to deface writing; to deface a note, deed, or bond; to deface a record. "This high face defaced." Emerson. So by fa…

To harm or destroy the good fame or reputation of; to disgrace; especially, to speak evil of maliciously; to dishonor by slanderous reports; to calumniate; to asperse.

To undo; to disfigure; to destroy. [Obs.] His unkindness may defeat my life. Shak.

Anything that destroys beauty, grace, or propriety; irregularity; absurdity; gross deviation from other or the established laws of propriety; as, deformity in an edifice; deformity of character. Confounded, that her Maker's eyes Should look so near upon her foul deformities. Milton.

That which destroys. [Obs.] They [the Scriptures] are the only deletery of heresies. Jer. Taylor.

Adapted to destroy or obliterate. [R.] Evelyn.

To melt and become liquid by absorbing water from the air; to deliquesce. Fourcroy.

o overwhelm, as with a deluge; to cover; to overspread; to overpower; to submerge; to destroy; as, the northern nations deluged the Roman empire with their armies; the land is deluged with woe. At length corruption, like a general fldeluge all. Pope.

heir or successor; transference; especially, the transfer or transmission of the crown or royal authority to a successor.

To throw or pull down; to raze; to destroy the fabric of; to pull to pieces; to ruin; as, to demolish an edifice, or a wall. I expected the fabric of my book would long since have been demolished, and laid even with the ground. Tillotson.

The act of overthrowing, pulling down, or destroying a pile or structure; destruction by violence; utter overthrow; -- opposed to construction; as, the demolition of a house, of military works, of a town, or of hopes.

To corrupt or undermine in morals; to destroy or lessen the effect of moral principles on; to render corrupt or untrustworthy in morals, in discipline, in courage, spirit, etc.; to weaken in spirit or efficiency. The demoralizing example of profligate power and prosperous crime. Walsh. The vices of the nobility had dem…

He who, or that which, deodorizes; esp., an agent that destroys offensive odors.

That which is lost or destroyed. [R.] Paley.