wipeout

or wipe-out

[ wahyp-out ]
See synonyms for wipeout on Thesaurus.com
noun
  1. Informal. destruction, annihilation, or murder.

  2. Informal. (in sports) a decisive defeat.

  1. a fall from a surfboard.

  2. Slang. a total or complete failure: to suffer a wipeout in the stock market.

  3. Slang. complete physical exhaustion.

Origin of wipeout

1
First recorded in 1920–25; noun use of verb phrase wipe out

Dictionary.com Unabridged Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2024

How to use wipeout in a sentence

  • They made it plain that they hoped to wipe out the sting of their recent defeat and take full vengeance upon the Kiowas.

    Three Sioux Scouts | Elmer Russell Gregor
  • I swear by my love for you and my mother that I will wipe out the Marcums, cost what it may.

    The Ghost Breaker | Charles Goddard
  • There is no process but life itself that can effectually wipe out the immigrant's memory of his past.

  • My old Slav kingdom I did not care to keep; it was best to give up everything, and wipe out all memory of myself.

  • But the sweetness of her nearness could not for him wipe out the fact that before them lay parting and long heartache.

    The Open Question | Elizabeth Robins

British Dictionary definitions for wipe out

wipe out

verb(adverb)
  1. (tr) to destroy completely; eradicate

  2. (tr) informal to murder or kill

  1. (intr) to fall or jump off a surfboard or skateboard

nounwipeout
  1. an act or instance of wiping out

  2. the interference of one radio signal by another so that reception is impossible

Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012

Other Idioms and Phrases with wipeout

wipeout

Destroy, as in The large chains are wiping out the independent bookstores. Originally put simply as wipe, the idiom acquired out in the first half of the 1800s.

The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary Copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.