annihilation

American  

[uh-nahy-uh-ley-shuhn] / əˌnaɪ əˈleɪ ʃən /

noun

annihilations plural

1. an act or instance of annihilating, or of completely destroying or defeating someone or something.

   the brutal annihilation of millions of people.

2. the state of being annihilated; total destruction; extinction.

   fear of nuclear annihilation.

3. Physics.

   1. Also called pair annihilation.  the process in which a particle and antiparticle unite, annihilate each other, and produce one or more photons.

   2. the conversion of rest mass into energy in the form of electromagnetic radiation.

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annihilation British  

/ əˌnaɪəˈleɪʃən /

noun

1. total destruction

2. the act of annihilating

3. 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

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Other Word Forms

Noun Inflected Forms

• annihilations
  plural

Etymology

Origin of annihilation

First recorded in 1630–40; from French or directly from Late Latin annihilātiōn- (stem of annihilātiō ); see origin at annihilate, -ion

Explanation

Annihilation is the total destruction of something. In World War II, our nuclear bombs resulted in the annihilation of Hiroshima. If you spill milk on your textbooks, it won’t result in annihilation — this word is much more serious. After an annihilation, there's nothing left but total, horrific destruction, like a wild fire completely wiping out a forest or a tsunami sweeping away a seaside town. This word has an end-of-the-world feel to it: many religions have stories of annihilation of some sort, resulting in the end of everything.

Example Sentences

See Examples For:

annihilation annihilations

While Vance was praising a technical framework designed to facilitate a regional ceasefire, the president was threatening the total annihilation of his negotiating partners, completely undermining his vice president’s diplomatic messaging.

From Salon ● Jun. 22, 2026

“Black milk of dawn,” “your golden hair Margarete,” “your ashen hair Shulamit”: the poem sets German culture and Jewish annihilation to a cadence so memorable that its memorability becomes part of its danger.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Jun. 5, 2026

In 2022, during the last review of the treaty considered the cornerstone of non-proliferation, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres warned humanity was "one misunderstanding, one miscalculation away from nuclear annihilation."

From Barron's ● Apr. 27, 2026

Since dark matter particles move slowly within galaxies, this type of interaction would make annihilation extremely rare, leaving little or no detectable signal anywhere.

From Science Daily ● Apr. 10, 2026

Such quick, arbitrary, effective, and wholesale annihilation fazed the surviving ant armies not one whit.

From "The Milagro Beanfield War" by John Nichols

"For a given mass, such annihilations are the densest form of energy release that we know of," Fajans added.

From Science Daily ● Sep. 27, 2023

Around the galaxies, moats of empty space would open that would prevent matter-antimatter annihilations and, oddly, mimic dark matter dynamically.

From Science Magazine ● Sep. 27, 2023

Dark matter annihilations could raise the temperature of a planet 14 times as massive as Jupiter from 250 K to 500 K or more, the researchers estimate.

From Science Magazine ● Mar. 26, 2021

Similar annihilations occur for other combinations of a particle with its antiparticle, sometimes producing more particles while obeying all conservation laws.

From Textbooks ● Aug. 12, 2015

He rejected the notion that animals and plants suffered sudden annihilations, and believed that all the principal animal groups–mammals, reptiles, fish, and so on–had coexisted since the dawn of time.

From "A Short History of Nearly Everything" by Bill Bryson

Related Words

• decimation
• demolition
• destruction
• elimination
• eradication
• extermination
• extinction
• liquidation