to bring something down by force: to take it down from where it stands or hangs, tear it down, or remove someone from a place of power
At its root this verb simply means to bring something down. It joins the idea of downward motion to the ordinary verb for taking or seizing, so the picture is always of something moved from a higher or standing position to a lower one: a body lifted off a cross, a barn leveled to the ground, a ruler pulled off a throne.
From that one picture the New Testament uses spread along a natural line. The most concrete sense is taking a body down from the cross, which is how the Gospels describe Jesus' burial. Aim the same action at a building and it becomes tearing down or demolishing, as when the rich farmer plans to pull down his barns and build bigger ones. Turn it on a nation or a stronghold and it becomes overthrowing or destroying, and Paul borrows this forceful, almost military word for the way the gospel demolishes arguments raised against God.
The last use runs in a different direction: to bring a person down from an exalted place is to depose them. Mary's song celebrates a God who has brought down the powerful from their thrones, and the silversmiths at Ephesus fear their goddess will be stripped of her greatness.
A near-synonym, καταλύω, overlaps the demolish sense, but it pictures a structure being loosened and dissolved until it collapses, while this verb keeps the picture of taking something down from where it stood.