Destruir un lugar por completo.
To destroy a place completely.
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See how the word “devastar” is used in sentences
La riada devastó los pueblos de la costa. — The flood devastated the coastal towns.
La noticia destrozó a sus padres. — The news devastated his parents.
Un solo incendio puede devastar un barrio entero. — A single fire can devastate a whole neighborhood.
Un mensaje así la destrozaría. — Such a message would devastate her.
Las tormentas devastan estas islas casi todos los años. — Storms devastate these islands almost every year.
No se lo digas todavía, lo va a destrozar. — Don't tell him yet, it will devastate him.
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Download the app for free Spanish vocabulary testDevastar and devastate look identical and cover only half the same ground. For a place they match: una inundación devastó la región. For a person Spanish does not follow — nobody is devastado by bad news in careful Spanish, they are destrozado or hundido.
That matters because the person sense is the commoner of the two in English, almost always passive: he was devastated. Note too that devastar is bookish in Spanish; in speech the verb is arrasar.
destrozado devastated, of a person
What Spanish actually uses where English says devastated about someone.
arrasar to flatten, to raze
The everyday verb, and stronger: arrasar leaves nothing, devastar leaves ruins.
arruinar to ruin
Weaker and wider — it stretches to a ruined evening, which devastar never does.
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