Obliterate

Quick meaning: Obliterate is a verb meaning To destroy (someone or something) completely, leaving no trace; to annihilate, to wipe out.

Meaning

To destroy (someone or something) completely, leaving no trace; to annihilate, to wipe out.

More Meanings

1. To hide (something) by covering it; to conceal, to obscure.
2. To cancel (a postage stamp) with a postmark so it cannot be reused.
3. To be destroyed completely, leaving no trace.
4. Of a body cavity, vessel, etc.: to close up or fill with tissue; of perfusion or a pulse: to cease owing to obstruction.
5. (except poetic) Completely destroyed or erased; effaced, obliterated.
6. To make (a drawing, text which is printed or written, etc.) indecipherable, either by erasing or obscuring it; to blot out, to efface, to delete.
7. To impair the function and/or structure of (a body cavity, vessel, etc.) by ablating or occluding it (in the latter case, chiefly by filling it with tissue).

Example Sentences

[H]e [Pope Gregory I] deſigned to obliterate and extinguiſh the memorie of Heathen antiquitie and Authors.

Soham's station had been completely obliterated (the replacement was to close in 1965 and is only now being reopened).

All tenderness for the feelings of others, all selfrespect, all sense of the becoming, were obliterated from his [George Jeffreys, 1st Baron Jeffreys's] mind.

That is what distance does for us; the harsh and bitter feelings of this or that experience are slowly obliterated, and memory begins to look kindly on the past.

Word Forms

• obliterates
• obliterating
• obliterated
• obliteratest
• obliteratedst
• obliterateth

Synonyms for obliterate

Depending on context, synonyms include bedash, eradicate, extirpate, raze, uproot, destroy.

Antonyms for obliterate

Common opposites include light, ignite.

Related Words

Related dictionary entries include wipe out, kill, efface, extinguish, destroyed, hide.

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