obliterate
Verb
- mark for deletion, rub off, or erase
- make undecipherable or imperceptible by obscuring or concealing
- remove completely from recognition or memory
- do away with completely, without leaving a trace
- To destroy (someone or something) completely, leaving no trace; to annihilate, to wipe out.
- To hide (something) by covering it; to conceal, to obscure.
- 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.
- 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).
- To cancel (a postage stamp) with a postmark so it cannot be reused.
- To be destroyed completely, leaving no trace.
- Of a body cavity, vessel, etc.: to close up or fill with tissue; of perfusion or a pulse: to cease owing to obstruction.
Adjective Satellite
- reduced to nothingness
Adj
- Completely destroyed or erased; effaced, obliterated.
- Of markings on an insect: difficult to distinguish from the background; faint, indistinct.
Examples
- distal pulses obliterate until perfusion is restored
- The rainclouds obliterated the sun as they swept across the sky.
Origin / Etymology
PIE word
*h₁epi
(start of 17th century) From earlier obliterat, learned borrowing from Latin obliterātus, oblitterātus (“having been blotted out, effaced, erased; having been forgotten”) (see -ate (verb-forming suffix, of participial origin)). Obliterātus and oblitterātus are respectively the perfect passive participles of obliterō and oblitterō (“to blot out, efface, erase, obliterate; to cause to be forgotten”), probably either:
* from ob- (prefix meaning ‘against; towards’) + littera (“letter of the alphabet; (metonymically) handwriting”) (further etymology unknown); or
* from oblītus (“disregarded, neglected; forgotten”), influenced by littera. Oblītus is the perfect passive participle of oblinō (“to daub over, besmear”), from ob- + possibly ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *h₁lengʷʰ- (“not heavy, light; brief; swift”).
Cognates
* Catalan obliterar (“to erase; to cancel (a stamp); to close up or fill (a body cavity, vessel, etc.)”)
* Middle French oblitérer (modern French oblitérer (“to cause (memories) to fade; to block, obstruct; to cancel (a stamp, ticket, etc.) so it cannot be reused”))
* Portuguese obliterar (“to destroy completely; to erase”)
* Spanish obliterar (“to destroy completely; to erase”)
Synonyms
blot out, blotted out, efface, hide, kill, obliterated, obscure, veil, wipe out, aerosolize, annihilate, atomize, bedash, benothing, bewreck, blotto, dash, decompose, demolish, desolate, destroy, devastate, diffuse, disintegrate, disperse, dissolve, do away with, eliminate, eradicate, erase, exterminate, extinguish, extirpate, fuck, harry, jazz, lay waste, level, liquidate, nuke, obliterate, pull down, pulverize, race, ravage, raze, remove, ruin, stamp out, total, unbreed, unexist, unmake, uproot, waste, wipe off, wreck
Scrabble Score: 12
obliterate: valid Scrabble (US) TWL Wordobliterate: valid Scrabble Word in Merriam-Webster MW Dictionary
obliterate: valid Scrabble Word in International Collins CSW Dictionary