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obliteration

From Wiktionary, the free dictionary

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See also: oblitération

English

Etymology

From obliterate +‎ -ion.

Pronunciation

This entry needs pronunciation information. If you are familiar with the IPA or enPR then please add some!
  • Rhymes: -eɪʃən
  • Audio:(file)

Noun

obliteration (countable and uncountable, plural obliterations)

  1. The total destruction of something.
    • 2022 December 19, Ashley Strickland, “Doomed exoplanet will be obliterated as it spirals into a star”, in CNN‎:
      This illustration depicts exoplanet Kepler-1658b (left), doomed to eventual obliteration by its aging host star.
    • 2023 May 18, Matt Fidler, “Stark before-and-after images reveal the obliteration of Bakhmut”, in The Guardian‎, →ISSN:
      Stark before-and-after images reveal the obliteration of Bakhmut [title]
    • 2025 June 24, Julian E. Barnes, Helene Cooper, Eric Schmitt, Ronen Bergman, Maggie Haberman, quoting Karoline Leavitt, “Strike Set Back Iran’s Nuclear Program by Only a Few Months, U.S. Report Says”, in The New York Times‎, →ISSN:
      “Everyone knows what happens when you drop 14 30,000-pound bombs perfectly on their targets: total obliteration.”
  2. The concealing or covering of something.
    • 1874, Thomas Hardy, chapter XI, in Far from the Madding Crowd. […], volume (please specify |volume=I or II), London: Smith, Elder & Co., […], →OCLC:
      Winter, in coming to the country hereabout, advanced in well-marked stages, wherein might have been successively observed the retreat of the snakes, the transformation of the ferns, the filling of the pools, a rising of fogs, the embrowning by frost, the collapse of the fungi, and an obliteration by snow.
  3. The cancellation, erasure or deletion of something.
    • 1974 February 2, Rudy Kikel, “The Good Grey and Great Gay Poets”, in Gay Community News, volume 1, number 32, page 17:
      Whitman did censor himself often enough, changing pronouns in some passages, excising others, learning, in short, the "strategies of concealment" forced on him by the nineteenth century. None of these obliterations, however, can excuse the endeavors of literary critics, who have tried to deny the importance of "sexuality" in the poetry by focusing on its "mystical" or its "universal" aspects.
    • 2001, David L. Lieber and Jules Harlow, Etz Hayim: Torah and Commentary, page 1134:
      Because he refused to protect his brother's name from obliteration, he acquires a derogatory nickname.
  4. (medicine) The cancellation of the function, structure, or both of a vessel or organ; for example, the occlusion of the lumen of a duct, blood vessel, or lymphatic vessel, be it solely functional (as when squeezed by nearby mass effect or inflammation) or both structural and functional (as when clogged with thrombus, embolus, or fibrosis).

Translations

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See also

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