annihilation

[uh-nahy-uh-ley-shuh n]

See more synonyms for annihilation on Thesaurus.com

noun

an act or instance of annihilating, or of completely destroying or defeating someone or something: the brutal annihilation of millions of people.
the state of being annihilated; total destruction; extinction: fear of nuclear annihilation.
Physics.
1. Also called pair annihilation.the process in which a particle and antiparticle unite, annihilate each other, and produce one or more photons.Compare positronium.
2. the conversion of rest mass into energy in the form of electromagnetic radiation.

Origin of annihilation

1630–40; (< F) < Late Latin annihilātiōn- (stem of annihilātiō). See annihilate, -ion

Dictionary.com Unabridged Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2018

Related Words for annihilation

liquidation, eradication, extermination, elimination, extinction, demolition, destruction, decimation, dissolution, obliteration, massacre, ruin, slaughter, erasure, retraction, voidance, invalidation, expunction, abrogation, negation

Examples from the Web for annihilation

Contemporary Examples of annihilation

It was three or four years of annihilation, and by the end my stomach was in bits.
Daniel Radcliffe: I’m Richer Than One Direction
Tim Teeman
October 24, 2014
The consequences of a drug conviction amount to the annihilation of citizenship.
How We Got to Ferguson—a Reading List
David Masciotra
August 23, 2014
Winters uses that cataclysmic event to examine the slow deterioration of communal life in the face of annihilation.
What Would You Do if the World Was Over?
William O’Connor
August 5, 2014
If anything he was much more conservative than JFK, why would Castro risk the annihilation of his country to make him president?
Who Really Killed JFK? Experts Pick the Wildest Conspiracy Theories
Thomas Flynn
November 20, 2013
Not to mention his infamous photo of the annihilation of a $100,000 Birkin bag.
Celebrity Photographer Tyler Shields Exposes ‘The Dirty Side of Glamour’
Justin Jones
November 6, 2013

Historical Examples of annihilation

Chip's way of saying yes was one of his chief weapons of annihilation.
Chip, of the Flying U
B. M. Bower
I—I—ugh, ugh, I know what you want:—a consolidation and annihilation of the States.
The Politician Out-Witted
Samuel Low
He clearly saw that the isolation of ideas or classes is the annihilation of reasoning.
Sophist
Plato
The quietness that came over me was like a foretaste of annihilation.
The Shadow-Line
Joseph Conrad
To-night he had gone to bed sternly resolved on a while of annihilation.
In a Little Town
Rupert Hughes

British Dictionary definitions for annihilation

annihilation

noun

total destruction
the act of annihilating
physics the destruction of a particle and its antiparticle when they collide. The annihilation of an electron with a positron generates two or, very rarely, three photons of annihilation radiation . The annihilation of a nucleon with its antiparticle generates several pions

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

Word Origin and History for annihilation

1630s, from Middle French annihilation (restored from Old French anichilacion, 14c.), or directly from Late Latin annihilationem (nominative annihilatio), noun of action from past participle stem of annihilare (see annihilate).