Annihilation

//əˌnaɪ.əˈleɪ.ʃən// noun

noun ·Moderate ·College level

Definitions

Noun
  1. 1
    The act of destroying or otherwise turning into nothing, or nonexistence. countable, uncountable
  2. 2
    destruction by annihilating something wordnet
  3. 3
    The act of destroying the form or combination of parts under which a thing exists, so that the name can no longer be applied to it. countable, uncountable

    "the annihilation of a corporation"

  4. 4
    total destruction wordnet
  5. 5
    The state of being annihilated. countable, uncountable

    "If you ask how religion thus falls on the thorns and faces death, and in the very act annuls annihilation, I cannot explain the matter, for it is religion's secret, and to understand it you must yourself have been a religious man of the extremer type."

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  1. 6
    The process of a particle and its corresponding antiparticle combining to produce energy. countable, uncountable

Example

More examples

"Nuclear weapons may bring about the annihilation of man."

Etymology

From Middle French annihilation, from Latin annihilātiō. By surface analysis, annihilate + -ion.

Related phrases

Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.