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.
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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
- 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
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.
They had to engineer the good T-cells to hunt the bad ones without the treatment annihilating itself.
From BBC
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
However, theory suggests that when two WIMPs collide, they annihilate each other and release energetic particles, including gamma ray photons.
From Science Daily
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.
Early on, researchers suspected that dark matter particles migh t be colliding and annihilating each other, creating intense bursts of radiation.
From Science Daily
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.
