ruin

American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition

1. n. Total destruction or disintegration, either physical, moral, social, or economic.
2. n. A cause of total destruction.
3. n. The act of destroying totally.
4. n. A destroyed person, object, or building.
5. n. The remains of something destroyed, disintegrated, or decayed. Often used in the plural: studied the ruins of ancient Greece.
6. v. To destroy completely; demolish.
7. v. To harm irreparably.
8. v. To reduce to poverty or bankruptcy.
9. v. To deprive of chastity.
10. v. To fall into ruin.

Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia

1. n. The act of falling or tumbling down; violent fall.
2. n. A violent or profound change of a thing, such as to unfit it for use, destroy its value, or bring it to an end; overthrow; downfall; collapse; wreck, material or moral: as, the ruin of a government; the ruin of health; financial ruin.
3. n. That which promotes injury, decay, or destruction; bane.
4. n. That which has undergone overthrow, downfall, or collapse; anything, as a building, in a state of destruction, wreck, or decay; hence, in the plural, the fragments or remains of anything overthrown or destroyed: as, the ruins of former beauty; the ruins of Nineveh.
5. n. The state of being ruined, decayed, destroyed, or rendered worthless.
6. n. Synonyms Subversion, wreck, shipwreck, prostration.
7. To bring to ruin; cause the downfall, overthrow, or collapse of; damage essentially and irreparably; wreck the material or moral well-being of; demolish; subvert; spoil; undo: as, to ruin a city or a government; to ruin commerce; to ruin one's health or reputation.
8. Specifically, to bring to financial ruin; reduce to a state of bankruptcy or extreme poverty.
9. Synonyms To destroy, overthrow, overturn, overwhelm.
10. To impoverish.
11. To fall headlong and with violence; rush furiously downward.
12. To fall into ruins; run to ruin; fall into decay; be dilapidated.
13. To be overwhelmed by loss, failure, suffering, or the like; be brought to misery or poverty.
14. To inflict ruin; do irreparable harm.

Wiktionary

1. n. countable construction withered by time.
2. n. uncountable The state of being a ruin, destroyed or decayed.
3. n. uncountable Something which leads to serious troubles.
4. v. transitive to cause the ruin of.
5. v. To destroy or make something no longer be able to be for good use.
6. v. To upset or mess up the plans or progress of, or to put into disarray; to spoil.

GNU Webster's 1913

1. n. obsolete The act of falling or tumbling down; fall.
2. n. Such a change of anything as destroys it, or entirely defeats its object, or unfits it for use; destruction; overthrow.
3. n. That which is fallen down and become worthless from injury or decay; ; especially, in the plural, the remains of a destroyed, dilapidated, or desolate house, fortress, city, or the like.
4. n. The state of being dcayed, or of having become ruined or worthless.
5. n. That which promotes injury, decay, or destruction.
6. v. To bring to ruin; to cause to fall to pieces and decay; to make to perish; to bring to destruction; to bring to poverty or bankruptcy; to impair seriously; to damage essentially; to overthrow.
7. v. rare To fall to ruins; to go to ruin; to become decayed or dilapidated; to perish.

WordNet 3.0

1. n. an irrecoverable state of devastation and destruction
2. v. fall into ruin
3. n. the process of becoming dilapidated
4. v. reduce to ruins
5. n. an event that results in destruction
6. v. reduce to bankruptcy
7. v. destroy or cause to fail
8. n. destruction achieved by causing something to be wrecked or ruined
9. n. failure that results in a loss of position or reputation
10. v. destroy completely; damage irreparably
11. v. deprive of virginity
12. n. a ruined building