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.
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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.
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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
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(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
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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:
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
When two WIMPs collide, they are expected to annihilate each other, releasing energy that could heat collapsing hydrogen clouds and cause them to shine as brilliant dark stars.
From Science Daily ● Oct. 14, 2025
Unlike all those other Aronofsky characters, who must annihilate themselves in search of absolution or perfection, Hank will probably be okay.
From Salon ● Aug. 29, 2025
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
Rather than annihilate one another, the nations of Europe would have to settle future disputes through negotiation and compromise.
From "The War to End All Wars: World War I" by Russell Freedman
“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 shows up unannounced, then annihilates the contours of life until gravity feels capricious — meaning that, when grief isn’t sending us to the floor, it’s floating us outside of our bodies, outside of time.
From Washington Post ● Dec. 19, 2021
Also, this sort of farming annihilates the soil.
From "The Martian" by Andy Weir
Let’s take managed-care stocks, which have been annihilated year to date.
From Barron's ● Apr. 30, 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
Two brand-new 737 Max airliners crashing in 2018 and 2019 annihilated public trust in Boeing, and the company has struggled to find its footing ever since.
From Slate ● Mar. 3, 2025
Some scientists have suggested that it was caused by a piece of hurtling antimatter, annihilated on contact with the ordinary matter of the Earth, disappearing in a flash of gamma rays.
From "Cosmos" by Carl Sagan
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
But Ginsberg cautioned that dehumanization “didn't propose a compassion or tenderness or mutual involvement or Buddha nature as an alternative. It proposed a complete annihilating void and nothingness.”
From Salon ● Feb. 16, 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
This can see insect species proliferate, annihilating many plant species.
From Science Daily ● Apr. 9, 2024
How was it possible that such effort, such plain virtue, could overnight be reduced to this—smoke, thinning as it rose and was received by the big, annihilating sky?
From "In Cold Blood" by Truman Capote
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.
