decimate

To kill one-tenth of (a group), (historical, specifically) as a military punishment in the Roman army selected by lot, usually carried out by the surviving soldiers.archaic

• God sometimes decimates or tithes delinquent persons, and they died for a common crime, according as God hath cast their lot in the decrees of predestination.

To destroy or remove one-tenth of (something).

• ...there will be eight hundred and ten laborers producing as nine hundred, while, to accomplish their purpose, they would have to produce as one thousand... Here, then, we have a society which is continually decimating itself...

To devastate: to reduce or destroy significantly but not completely.broadly

• Um, some sort of power overload. I'm afraid it decimated your breakfast.

To exact a tithe or other 10% tax.obsolete

• You forge theſe things prettily; but I have heard you are as poor as a decimated Cavalier [referring to Cromwell's ten per cent. income-tax on Cavaliers], and had not one foot of land in all the vvorld.

To tithe: to pay a 10% tax.obsoleterare

• [I]t is a deed of higheſt charitie to help undeceive the people, and a vvork vvorthieſt your autoritie, in all things els authors, aſſertors and novv recoverers of our libertie, to deliver us, the only people of all Proteſtants left ſtill u

To divide into tenths; to decimalize.obsolete

• For example, in multiplying 3 by 0.2, the 3 units have to be decimated—that is, divided into 10 equal parts, obtaining 3 “deci-units” for each part, and then 2 such parts taken, giving as the answer 6 deci-units, or 0.6.

To reduce to one-tenth: to destroy or remove nine-tenths of (something).proscribed

• In this dramatic picture, the nation is literally decimated, and even the tenth which remains is subjected to a further destruction.
• African slaves were needed to replace Native American populations that had been decimated (literally reduced to one-tenth their size) by European conquest.

To replace (a high-resolution model) with another of lower but acceptable quality. (Usually algorithmically)

• A decimate tool allows us to obtain a more coarse-grained view of the data over the full n-dimensional space.

A tithe or other 10% tax or payment.obsolete

A tenth of something.obsolete

A set of ten items.obsolete