Devastated — A Vocabulary Story
The Lost Kit
The morning of the regional swimming gala, Musa unzipped his bag and froze. His lucky goggles, the ones his cousin Sunil had posted all the way from Mombasa, were gone.
"I'm devastated," he whispered, sinking onto the changing-room bench. "Absolutely devastated."
Devastated means completely overwhelmed by shock, grief, or distress. It also means completely ruined and destroyed.
His coach, Christine, knelt beside him. "I know you're devastated, but we've got fifteen minutes. Think. Where did you last see them?"
Musa retraced his steps in his head: the bus, the café, the warm-up pool. Nothing.
A younger swimmer, Rose, poked her head round the door. "Are you the boy with the blue goggles? Some bloke at reception found a pair by the lockers."
Musa sprinted down the corridor. There, on the desk, sat his goggles — but the strap was snapped clean in two. He looked utterly devastated all over again.
"Don't be devastated yet," Christine said, rummaging in her kitbag. She produced a roll of waterproof tape and bound the strap with the steady hands of someone who had rescued worse disasters.
Musa climbed onto the blocks, heart hammering. He didn't win. He came third, half a second behind a lanky lad from Cardiff who looked devastated not to have taken gold.
But Musa grinned, clutching his bronze and walked back home.
Word Definition
devastated
meaning
completely overwhelmed by shock, grief, or distress; completely ruined and destroyed
synonyms
destroyed · ruined · ravaged · shattered · broken
antonyms
restored · fixed · repaired
example sentence
The earthquake devastated the entire coastal region, leaving thousands homeless.