deforestation

Etymology

[1874] Borrowed from French déforestation

Pronunciation

• (UK) IPA^(key): /dɪˌfɒɹɪsˈteɪʃən/
• Rhymes: -eɪʃən

Noun

deforestation (countable and uncountable, plural deforestations)

1. The process of destroying a forest and replacing it with something else, especially with an agricultural system.
   • 2006, Edwin Black, chapter 2, in Internal Combustion‎:

     Buried within the Mediterranean littoral are some seventy to ninety million tons of slag from ancient smelting, about a third of it concentrated in Iberia. This ceaseless industrial fueling caused the deforestation of an estimated fifty to seventy million acres of woodlands.