decimate

God sometimes decimates or tithes delinquent persons, and they died for a common crime, according as God hath cast their lot in the decrees of predestination.

...there will be eight hundred and ten laborers producing as nine hundred, while, to accomplish their purpose, they would have to produce as one thousand... Here, then, we have a society which is continually decimating itself...

[England] had decimated itself for a question which involved no principle, and led to no result.

You forge theſe things prettily; but I have heard you are as poor as a decimated Cavalier [referring to Cromwell's ten per cent. income-tax on Cavaliers], and had not one foot of land in all the vvorld.

[I]t is a deed of higheſt charitie to help undeceive the people, and a vvork vvorthieſt your autoritie, in all things els authors, aſſertors and novv recoverers of our libertie, to deliver us, the only people of all Proteſtants left ſtill undeliverd, from the oppreſſions of a Simonious decimating clergie; […]

An adjective use.

In this dramatic picture, the nation is literally decimated, and even the tenth which remains is subjected to a further destruction.

A decimate tool allows us to obtain a more coarse-grained view of the data over the full n-dimensional space.