annihilate
Americanverb (used with object)
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annihilates,
present (3rd person singular)
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annihilated,
past participle, past
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annihilating
present participle
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to reduce to utter ruin or nonexistence; destroy utterly.
The heavy bombing almost annihilated the city.
-
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
Derived Forms
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annihilatornoun
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annihilableadjective
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annihilativeadjective
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annihilatoryadjective
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unannihilatedadjective
-
unannihilativeadjective
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unannihilatoryadjective
Inflected Forms
Participles
Conjugated Forms
Present
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annihilatesimple
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annihilatessimple
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have annihilatedperfect
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has annihilatedperfect
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am annihilatingprogressive
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are annihilatingprogressive
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is annihilatingprogressive
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have been annihilatingperfect progressive
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has been annihilatingperfect progressive
Past
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annihilatedsimple
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had annihilatedperfect
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was annihilatingprogressive
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were annihilatingprogressive
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had been annihilatingperfect progressive
Future
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.
See Examples For:
The miracle of our species isn’t that we annihilate each other, it’s that we cooperate at all.
From Salon ● Apr. 23, 2026
These stars could be powered not only by nuclear fusion, but also by energy released when dark matter particles annihilate.
From Science Daily ● Jan. 28, 2026
Self-proclaimed experts usually attract trouble through hubris, though I’ve seen bank traders and hedge fund managers annihilate themselves with slavish beliefs in trading ranges.
From Barron's ● Jan. 14, 2026
The spokesperson added: "We stand ready to annihilate Ms Pisciotta's tall tales before a jury − an exoneration so inevitable that even she, lost in her fog of fantasy, must surely see it coming."
From BBC ● Jul. 24, 2025
But they let it run its course, fulfill itself, and never invented ways either to alter it, to annihilate it or to prevent its happening again.
From "Sula" by Toni Morrison
“She annihilates people on the steep pitch that’s like a sheet of ice,” Street said.
From Los Angeles Times ● Feb. 14, 2026
I’ve learned that chemotherapy does kill cancer cells, but also annihilates other cells in the body, including the ones that produce hair.
From Seattle Times ● Aug. 26, 2022
Meanwhile, deforestation, which annihilates the fungi along with their host trees, disrupts this whole underground, climate change-fighting ecosystem.
From BBC ● Jun. 18, 2022
It doesn’t build on the work that came before, but annihilates it.
From Washington Post ● Feb. 7, 2019
Also, this sort of farming annihilates the soil.
From "The Martian" by Andy Weir
Those two forms of matter should then have annihilated one another, leaving behind energy rather than the matter-filled universe we see today.
From Science Daily ● Sep. 23, 2026
“I don’t think demand has been completely annihilated because of the war, but I’m sure it’s been impacted,” says John Lovallo, a UBS analyst covering home builders.
From Barron's ● Apr. 20, 2026
That this curiosity translates to cold, hard cash is fantastic news in the streaming era, when Netflix, Hulu and the like have all but annihilated the theatrical mid-budget film.
From Salon ● Mar. 19, 2026
He annihilated the Carthaginians and Numidians standing in his way, which forced Hannibal to retreat from southern Italy to fight what each man hoped would be “a final battle” at Zama.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Nov. 16, 2025
In one of the rivers, the young of a run of 40,000 adult Coho salmon were almost completely annihilated.
From "Silent Spring" by Rachel Carson
The Jewish holiday Purim celebrates their triumph roughly 2,500 years ago over a minister to the king bent on annihilating the empire’s Jews.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 3, 2026
Early on, researchers suspected that dark matter particles migh t be colliding and annihilating each other, creating intense bursts of radiation.
From Science Daily ● Nov. 5, 2025
But Mr Pezeshkian, who was elected in July, adopted a more conciliatory tone than his hard-line predecessors, avoiding rhetoric about annihilating the Islamic Republic’s arch-enemy.
From BBC ● Sep. 26, 2024
It’s a new position that requires different footwork, hand-and-eye coordination and other techniques all while trying to keep strong and speedy edge rushers from annihilating their quarterback.
From Seattle Times ● Dec. 29, 2023
War, however, is no longer the desperate, annihilating struggle that it was in the early decades of the twentieth century.
From "1984" by George Orwell
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Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
