annihilation

[ uh-nahy-uh-ley-shuhn ]

noun

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

Word History and Origins

Origin of annihilation¹

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

Example Sentences

We came close to destroying all life on Earth during the Cold War, with the threat of nuclear annihilation.

From Time

Fourteen spots in the sky gave off the gamma rays expected from matter-antimatter annihilation events.

From Science News For Students

This type of particle annihilation gives off gamma rays with certain wavelengths.

From Science News For Students

It’s set chiefly in Des Moines in the 1950s, when America was perfect except for the threat of nuclear annihilation, racial oppression, the birth of unbridled consumerism and little Billy’s mother’s cooking.

From Washington Post

For North American bats, contracting this new virus carried the risk of absolute annihilation.

From FiveThirtyEight

Nazi texts proclaimed that the annihilation or expulsion of the Armenians was a “compelling necessity.”

From The Daily Beast

It was three or four years of annihilation, and by the end my stomach was in bits.

From The Daily Beast

The consequences of a drug conviction amount to the annihilation of citizenship.

From The Daily Beast

Winters uses that cataclysmic event to examine the slow deterioration of communal life in the face of annihilation.

From The Daily Beast

So she has to be perfect and self-sacrificing to the point of self-annihilation.

From The Daily Beast

The object of these scarli is to manifest the popular exultation at the annihilation of feudal tyranny.

From Project Gutenberg

To his excited imagination, we time and again escaped complete wreck and annihilation by a mere hair's breadth.

From Project Gutenberg

Its history was no doubt as stirring as that of others of the border castles, which more fortunately escaped annihilation.

From Project Gutenberg

Annihilation of ones own identity in the moment is possible in natures domainnever in mans.

From Project Gutenberg

To wish to separate technique from poetry is a modern folly which will lead to nothing but the annihilation of Art itself.

From Project Gutenberg

Related Words

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