What's the difference between devastate and devour?

Devastate


Definition:

  • (v. t.) To lay waste; to ravage; to desolate.

Example Sentences:

  • (1) It appears that irrespective of the elucidation of the nature of the putative aetiological factor (presumed to be viral) in MS, the arrest and reversal of T cell-related events within the CNS in this devastating condition represent feasible goals and should remain a major target for some time to come.
  • (2) Samaras said: A "Grexit", as it is called, would be devastating for Greece and detrimental to Europe.
  • (3) While winds gusting to 170mph caused significant damage, the devastation in areas such as Tacloban – where scenes are reminiscent of the 2004 Indian ocean tsunami – was principally the work of the 6-metre-high storm surge, which carried away even the concrete buildings in which many people sought shelter.
  • (4) The Financial Services Authority is meant to be the City's watchdog but "devastating" internal documents reveal it has secretly co-ordinated high-level lobbying strategies with the industry it is supposed to police.
  • (5) The government acknowledged it had been overwhelmed by the devastation from the deadliest quake in Nepal in over 80 years.
  • (6) Mark Rasch, a cyber crime expert quoted by the FT, meanwhile said recent events have been “a serious and devastating attack to [Sony’s] reputation and image”, and his opinion is played out by a new YouGov poll into the public perception of Sony’s brand.
  • (7) "When people don't feel they have a reason to stay out of trouble, the consequences for communities can be devastating – as we saw last August," said Darra Singh, chair of the panel.
  • (8) Newcastle United are “devastated” by their relegation from the Premier League, according to the club’s managing director Lee Charnley.
  • (9) In order to reduce the devasting effects of enteric diseases among children born to mothers in tropical countries of Africa and Asia, it is imperative that all health workers understand the cultural and social perceptions of their clients towards the disease in question.
  • (10) All the personality, dignity and humanity of a person are devastated by this torture.
  • (11) Age UK believes McDonald's human rights have been breached and that there could be "extremely adverse and devastating consequences for many thousands of older people if other councils take similar decisions to save money".
  • (12) And then, as the Guardian revealed at the weekend, there is the potentially devastating effect of the boundary changes, which can’t really be brought in before an early election but will radically tilt the field by 2020.
  • (13) He said: "[That] could be devastating for the renewables industry.
  • (14) To say that the loss of BB King is devastating to the blues community is an understatement.
  • (15) 'Devastated' Peter Greste calls on Egypt's president to pardon trio Read more “It’s ironic that the conviction was for tarnishing Egypt’s reputation when ... this [case] is what’s tarnished Egypt’s image,” Clooney told BBC News.
  • (16) The report, extracts of which were published by the investigative news website Exaro , is said to include “devastating detail” of the corporation’s “sheer scale of awareness” of the late star’s activities.
  • (17) Although anterior and posterior traumatic displacement of cervical vertebrae are commonly noted, and the devastating neurological deficits associated with these injuries have been amply defined, lateral displacement with fractures has been rarely recognized, and the clinical significance of this injury has been overlooked.
  • (18) Bernard Hogan-Howe, the Met commissioner, said a report revealing the undercover officers had spied on the family of murdered teenager Stephen Lawrence was “devastating” for Scotland Yard and “one of the worst days that I have seen as a police officer”.
  • (19) The case for halting British arms sales to Saudi Arabia has been evident, not only on moral grounds, since civilians started dying in the conflict devastating Yemen.
  • (20) Devastating neurologic complications can be avoided or alleviated in a great proportion of patients undergoing radiation therapy for cerebral metastases and spinal cord compression.

Devour


Definition:

  • (v. t.) To eat up with greediness; to consume ravenously; to feast upon like a wild beast or a glutton; to prey upon.
  • (v. t.) To seize upon and destroy or appropriate greedily, selfishly, or wantonly; to consume; to swallow up; to use up; to waste; to annihilate.
  • (v. t.) To enjoy with avidity; to appropriate or take in eagerly by the senses.

Example Sentences:

  • (1) She devoured political science texts, took evening classes at Goldsmiths college, and performed at protests and fundraisers, but became disillusioned.
  • (2) On land, sand miners have devoured whole swaths of beach, from Jamaica to Russia.
  • (3) I gaze at it across the street and, as if by magic, I ache with longing, just as I used to in the days when a trip here was the most enjoyable thing I could possibly imagine: when books were all I wanted, when I thought of them as pieces of ripe fruit, waiting to be peeled and devoured.
  • (4) Within half an hour, George Galloway – the native of Dundee, MP for Bradford West, a former Labour MP for inner Glasgow, and figurehead of the Respect party – is sitting in Wetherspoon's, devouring fish and chips and granting about a dozen requests for photographs.
  • (5) The contents of the posterior cranial fossa are actively "sucked up", "devoured" by the latter.
  • (6) Kentucky secretary of state Alison Lundergan Grimes began the night recalling that the soon-to-be nominee loves lifestyle TV “and can devour buffalo wings”.
  • (7) She reels off esoteric book recommendations ("I just devoured this great book about the mistaken theories of pre-historic sexuality.
  • (8) Tissue samples from partly devoured carcasses contained T. spiralis larvae, implicating cannibalism as a major vehicle for the spread of T. spiralis in the herd.
  • (9) This is the real deal, what people want, what they can’t wait to devour.
  • (10) Partners of depressives experience themselves often as being totally in their hands respectively "devoured" by them.
  • (11) But now players devour it.” Jürgen Klinsmann was the conduit in 2004 when he became Germany’s head coach.
  • (12) Desperate and with nowhere else to go, eventually I found a cheap hotel, which devoured my dwindling resources.
  • (13) Growing up in 1940s French Algeria, the young Yves Henri Donat Mathieu-Saint-Laurent dreamed of Paris: a bullied outcast at school, he escaped into fantasy at home – devouring his mother's fashion magazines, sketching endlessly, and predicting (in the safety of his adoring family circle, at least) a future of spectacular fame.
  • (14) The monster the US has unleashed on the rest of the world is steadily devouring its own.
  • (15) I say to them: ‘Five minutes with this guy, and he’ll win you over.’” In a quiet restaurant in the City on Friday afternoon, over a selection of steak cuts that he devours efficiently, Joshua talks without edge about Fury, about his opponent in London on Saturday night, Dillian Whyte, and about himself.
  • (16) We tend to take our harmless fun where we find it – even if, like KidZania, it’s on the top floor of the next scourge devouring Bangkok, a giant shopping mall.
  • (17) Like other contemporary artists, Allen Jones being an obvious example, he devoured and then recycled the imagery of popular American magazines.
  • (18) I’m not being ironic: the bogs of western Britain and Ireland don’t freeze as they do in Scandinavia, so the geese can devour the roots of marshy plants on which they depend.
  • (19) The reef will also be aided by an $89m boost to programs such as the Reef Trust, a Coalition plan to improve water quality and tackle threats such as a plague of starfish which has devoured much of the reef’s coral.
  • (20) Applying pragmatism to her desire to learn English under communism, she devoured technical manuals and copies of the Morning Star .