annihilate
Americanverb (used with object)
-
to reduce to utter ruin or nonexistence; destroy utterly.
The heavy bombing almost annihilated the city.
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to destroy the collective existence or main body of; wipe out.
to annihilate an army.
- Synonyms:
- demolish, obliterate, smash
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to annul; make void.
to annihilate a law.
-
to cancel the effect of; nullify.
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to defeat completely; vanquish.
Our basketball team annihilated the visiting team.
verb
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(tr) to destroy completely; extinguish
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informal (tr) to defeat totally, as in debate or argument
-
(intr) physics to undergo annihilation
Other Word Forms
Etymology
Origin of annihilate
First recorded in 1350–1400; Middle English adnichilat(e) “destroyed,” from Late Latin annihilātus “brought to nothing,” past participle of annihilāre “to bring to nothing,” from Latin an- an- 2 + nihil “nothing” + -āre, infinitive suffix
Explanation
Killing ends when the thing you are killing (your sworn enemy, all hope, a pesky mosquito) is dead. Annihilate goes farther—when you annihilate something, you wipe all trace of it from the earth. You kill a person, but you annihilate a tribe, a town, or even a species. It's nice to think that the human race made it all the way up until the 16th century before annihilate came to mean what it does now. Might this have something to do with the increasing use of gunpowder around this time?
Vocabulary lists containing annihilate
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Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
O Samas! may my prayer bring me sweet rest, And may my Lord his favor grant to me: Annihilate the things that me invest!
From Babylonian and Assyrian Literature by Anonymous
Inherited with life, Belief but once can be; Annihilate a single clause, And Being's beggary.
From Poems by Emily Dickinson, Three Series, Complete by Dickinson, Emily
Cover the gloomy rock where I— Ha! thunder Annihilate thee, accursed thought, that darest Disturb the Skoldung where to rest he’s flung him!
From The Death of Balder by Borrow, George Henry
Annihilate this classification of junior and senior pleasures.
From The Portland Sketch Book by Various
Annihilate both Time and Space To make two lovers happy.’”
From For Fortune and Glory A Story of the Soudan War by Paget, Walter
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
