At the end of 2018's Infinity War, after besting nearly all of the Avengers (Hawkeye and Ant-Man were MIA) and the crew of the Benatar (Peter Quill's ship), galactic warlord Thanos snapped his fingers and the six Infinity Stones set in his custom gauntlet allowed him to realize his dream of killing off half of the universe. Since then, MCU fans have taken to characterizing this massacre as a decimation.
The thing is, the word decimation is derived from the Latin word "decimatio", which means removal of a tenth -- not half. According to historians, military commanders in Ancient Rome sometimes enforced discipline by dividing the troops into groups of 10; each group drew straws; and the soldier with the shortest straw in the group was then stabbed or beaten to death by the other nine. So what Thanos did was actually much, MUCH worse than decimating the universal population. A decimation would've been pretty charitable by comparison.
Originally Posted 3/19/19
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