obliteration
nounEtymology From obliterate + -ion.
1
The total destruction of something.
- This illustration depicts exoplanet Kepler-1658b (left), doomed to eventual obliteration by its aging host star.2022 December 19, Ashley Strickland, “Doomed exoplanet will be obliterated as it spirals into a star”, in CNN:
- Stark before-and-after images reveal the obliteration of Bakhmut [title]2023 May 18, Matt Fidler, “Stark before-and-after images reveal the obliteration of Bakhmut”, in The Guardian, →ISSN:
1 more example
- “Everyone knows what happens when you drop 14 30,000-pound bombs perfectly on their targets: total obliteration.”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:
2
The concealing or covering of something.
- 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.1874, Thomas Hardy, chapter XI, in Far from the Madding Crowd. […], volume (please specify |volume=I or II), London: Smith, Elder & Co., […], →OCLC:
3
The cancellation, erasure or deletion of something.
- 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.1974 February 2, Rudy Kikel, “The Good Grey and Great Gay Poets”, in Gay Community News, volume 1, number 32, page 17:
- Because he refused to protect his brother's name from obliteration, he acquires a derogatory nickname.2001, David L. Lieber and Jules Harlow, Etz Hayim: Torah and Commentary, page 1134:
4
Medicine, Sciences 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).
- Derived terms
- abliteration, angioobliteration, disobliteration, obliterationism, vasoobliteration
- Related terms
- obliterate, obliviation, oblivion, ablation, cauterization, sclerotherapy, abrogation