DESTROY, L. To pile, to build.

1. To demolish to pull down to separate the parts of an edifice, the union of which is necessary to constitute the thing as, to destroy a house or temple to destroy a fortification.
2. To ruin to annihilate a thing by demolishing or by burning as, to destroy a city.
3. To ruin to bring to naught to annihilate as, to destroy a theory or scheme to destroy a government to destroy influence.
4. To lay waste to make desolate.

Go up against this land, and destroy it. Isaiah 36 .

5. To kill to slay to extirpate applied to men or other animals.

Ye shall destroy all this people. Numbers 32 .

All the wicked will he destroy. Psalms 145 .

6. To take away to cause to cease to put an end to as, pain destroys happiness.

That the body of sin might be destroyed. Romans 6 .

7. To kill to eat to devour to consume. Birds destroy insects. Hawks destroy chickens.
8. In general, to put an end to to annihilate a thing or the form in which it exists. An army is destroyed by slaughter, capture or dispersion a forest, by the ax, or by fire towns, by fire or inundation, &c.
9. In chimistry, to resolve a body into its parts or elements.