annihilate
Americanverb (used with object)
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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.
-
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
- annihilable adjective
- annihilative adjective
- annihilator noun
- annihilatory adjective
- unannihilated adjective
- unannihilative adjective
- unannihilatory adjective
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.
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
Each particle of matter has an antimatter partner with the same mass but opposite charge, and when they meet, they annihilate into pure energy.
From Science Daily • Dec. 7, 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
But when the tide of war turned against the British, the Continental Congress was able to focus on an offensive to annihilate the Shawnee Nation in the Ohio Country.
From "An Indigenous People’s History of the United States" by Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz
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.
