annihilation

From Middle French annihilation, from Latin ad (“to”) + nihil (“nothing”).

• (US) IPA^(key): /əˈnaɪ.ə.leɪ.ʃən/
• Rhymes: -eɪʃən

annihilation (countable and uncountable, plural annihilations)

1. The act of destroying or otherwise turning into nothing, or nonexistence
2. 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

   the annihilation of a corporation

3. The state of being annihilated.
   • 1902, William James, The Varieties of Religious Experience, Lecture 2:

     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.

4. (physics) The process of a particle and its corresponding antiparticle combining to produce energy.

• (act of reducing to nothing): extinction, eradication
• (state of being annihilated): extinction

• (act of reducing to nothing): creation, generation
• (state of being annihilated): generation

• annihilation in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, G. & C. Merriam, 1913.
• annihilation in The Century Dictionary, New York, N.Y.: The Century Co., 1911.
• annihilation at OneLook Dictionary Search

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annihilation f (plural annihilations)

1. annihilation