Полностью разрушать какое-либо место.
To destroy a place completely.
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See how the word “опустошать” is used in sentences
Наводнение опустошило прибрежные городки. — The flood devastated the coastal towns.
Новость потрясла его родителей. — The news devastated his parents.
Один пожар может опустошить целый район. — A single fire can devastate a whole neighborhood.
Такое известие её бы потрясло. — Such a message would devastate her.
Штормы опустошают эти острова почти каждый год. — Storms devastate these islands almost every year.
Пока не говори ему, это его потрясёт. — Don't tell him yet, it will devastate him.
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Download the app for free Russian vocabulary testОпустошать is the place sense of devastate, and its root says so: пусто, empty. It is what a war or a fire does to a region — it empties it. Russian also uses it figuratively for a person left hollow, which is close to English devastated but not the same: опустошённый is drained, not stricken.
For the English person sense — he was devastated — Russian reaches for убит горем or раздавлен. And note the aspect pair: опустошать is the imperfective, опустошить the perfective.
убитый горем devastated, of a person
What Russian says where English says devastated about someone — literally killed by grief.
уничтожить to destroy utterly
Nothing left. Опустошать empties a place but leaves it standing.
портить to spoil
The weak, everyday verb — it covers a spoiled evening, which опустошать does not.
пустой empty
The root the verb is built on, and the quickest way to remember what it means.
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