destruccioun

• distruccioun, distructioun
• destruccion, destruccione, destruccon, destructione, destruxioun, distroccioun, distruccion, dystruccioun (Late Middle English)

Borrowed from Old French destruccion, from Latin dēstructiō (“destruction, demolition”). Forms with /i/ may either represent vowel reduction or influence from the prefix dis- (as if Latin *distructiō).

• IPA^(key): /dɛˌstruksiˈuːn/, /dɛˈstruksjun/, /dɛː-/, /di-/

destruccioun (uncountable)

1. Destruction; the act of destroying or being destroyed:
   1. Devastation, ruination (of a place or of the Earth)
      • c. 1395, John Wycliffe, John Purvey [et al.], transl., Bible (Wycliffite Bible (later version), MS Lich 10.)‎^[1], published c. 1410, Coꝛinthis ·ii· 10:4, folio 70, verso, column 2; republished as Wycliffe's translation of the New Testament, Lichfield: Bill Endres, 2010:

        foꝛ þe armeris of oure knyȝthood ben not fleıſchli⹎ but myȝtı bı god to þe dıſtruccioũ of ſtrẽgþis.

        Since the weapons of our warfare aren't material, but [are] instead powered by God for the destruction of strongholds.

      • 1471 September 28 [1464], Raoul le ffeure, translated by Willyam Caxton, [T]he recuyell of the hiſtoryes of Troye, [London], translation of Le recueil de histoires de Troye (in Middle French), published c. 1474; republished by H. Oskar Sommer, editor‎^[2]volume II, London: David Nutt, 1894, →OCLC, leaf 175:

        AFter this generall deſtruccion of troye . whan the grekes were departed and hercules had ſo lefte hem […]

        After this total devastation of Troy, when the Greeks had departed and Hercules therefore had left them […]

   2. Ruin, downfall, dissolution (of a person or institution)
   3. Death, mortality; the end of a life.
   4. (rare) Annihiliation (of a sin); nullification (of a law).
2. Something that leads to or creates destruction.

• English: destruction
• Middle Scots: destructioun, distructioun
  • Scots: destruction

• “dē̆strucciǒun, n.”, in MED Online, Ann Arbor, Mich.: University of Michigan, 2007.