devastate
/ˈdɛv.ə.steɪt/
"devastate" is a 9-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“devastate” is a moderately-common English word, ranked #45,881 in English word frequency and used as a verb.
- #45,881
- frequency rank, English
- 9
- letters
- 13
- tracked misspellings
- 1
- confusable pair
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed May 6, 2026) - To ruin many or all things over a large area, such as most or all buildings of a city, or cities of a region, or trees of a forest.
Visual similarity to commonly confused words
How many letter changes separate each confused pair (Levenshtein distance, normalized).
Source: PlainSpell confusable corpus (Wiktionary, CC BY-SA).
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | devastate |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Verb |
| IPA | /ˈdɛv.ə.steɪt/ |
| Letters | 9 |
| Frequency rank | #45,881 |
| Misspellings tracked | 13 |
| Confusable pairs | 1 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Where “devastate” sits in English frequency
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
The English entry for devastate is 9 letters long, classified as a verb, and transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet as /ˈdɛv.ə.steɪt/. Corpus data places it at rank #45,881 in overall English word frequency, marking it as uncommon enough that many writers pause before typing it. Wiktionary records 4 distinct senses for this headword, so context determines which meaning a reader should apply.
Our generated misspelling index lists 13 likely wrong-spelling variants for devastate, with forms such as "ddevastate", "deavstate", and "devasatte". Every one of these variants traces to a single-character edit -- an added or dropped letter, a swapped consonant, or a vowel swap -- the kind of slip a spell-checker is built to catch. It also participates in 1 confusable-pair relationship, "devastated", a pairing that trips writers up because the two words share enough sound or shape to blur together.
Etymologically, the entry records: Borrowed from Latin dēvastātus, perfect passive participle of dēvastō (“to lay waste, devastate”) (see -ate (verb-forming suffix)); from dē- (augmentative prefix) + vastō (“to destroy, lay waste”). See vast. First attested in 1638. The correct English form is devastate, spelled D-E-V-A-S-T-A-T-E.
Definition
- 1To ruin many or all things over a large area, such as most or all buildings of a city, or cities of a region, or trees of a forest.
- 2To destroy a whole collection of related ideas, beliefs, and strongly held opinions.
- 3To break beyond recovery or repair so that the only options are abandonment or the clearing away of useless remains (if any) and starting over.
- 4To greatly demoralize, to cause to suffer intense grief or dismay
Etymology
Borrowed from Latin dēvastātus, perfect passive participle of dēvastō (“to lay waste, devastate”) (see -ate (verb-forming suffix)); from dē- (augmentative prefix) + vastō (“to destroy, lay waste”). See vast. First attested in 1638.
This word in other languages
Common misspellings
Also misspelled as: ddevastate,deavstate,devasatte,devasstate,devastaet,devastatte,devasttae,devasttate,devatsate,devsatate,devvastate,dveastate,edvastate
Misspelling Pattern Breakdown
How far each generated variant is from the correct spelling of devastate - counted as single-character edits (an insertion, a deletion, or a substituted letter). The larger the bar, the easier the typo is to spot; one-edit slips are the ones that sneak past readers.
Definitions, pronunciation, and etymology for this entry are drawn from Wiktionary via the kaikki.org structured extract (CC BY-SA); frequency ordering uses the FrequencyWords open word-frequency list (2018 English corpus, MIT). See the methodology for how each field is sourced and updated.
Frequently Asked Questions
How do you spell "devastate"?
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Using “devastate”
The practical upshot for anyone who landed here from a spell-check.
- The one correct English spelling is D-E-V-A-S-T-A-T-E - every other letter order is a misspelling in standard orthography.
- Say it as /ˈdɛv.ə.steɪt/ (IPA); tap the speaker on the pronunciation badge to hear it where audio exists.
- Don't mix it up with “devastated” - see the side-by-side comparison. devastate vs devastated
- Browse more English words and confusable pairs in the same reference. English words
Data Source
Wiktionary (via kaikki.org), licensed under CC BY-SA & GFDL. Word ordering uses an open word-frequency list; misspelling variants are generated by edit-distance from the correct headword.