Other forms: destroyed, destroying, destroys
To destroy something is to damage it so completely that nothing usable is left. Fire destroyed the building. The floods destroyed the harvest.
It is stronger than damage and stronger than ruin, and that strength is worth respecting: a destroyed building is gone, not repairable. It is used figuratively of things that cannot be rebuilt either — destroy a reputation, destroy somebody's confidence. Note that the noun is destruction, not destroyment, and that a destroyer is both a person who destroys and a class of warship. Self-destruct and destructive are the other common members of the family.
1verbdestroyTo damage something so completely that nothing is left.
“The fire destroyed everything on the top floor.”
synonyms: demolish, wreck, obliterate
2verbendTo end something so that it cannot be recovered.
“The rumour destroyed a thirty-year career.”
Too few real examples of this word to estimate which sense is commonest.
destroy is a way of ruining completely.
Latin destruere is de-, down, plus struere, to build — literally to unbuild. The same struere gives structure, construct and instrument. Destruction is building run backwards, which is exactly what demolition looks like.
Proto-Indo-European
*strew-
Latin
dēstruō
Vulgar Latin
*destrugō
Old French
destruire
Middle English
destroyen
English, today
destroy
Built from
From Middle English destroyen, from Old French destruire, Vulgar Latin destrugō, from Classical Latin dēstruō, from dē- (“un-, de-”) + struō (“to build”).
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA