Obliteration Meaning
/əˌblɪtəˈreɪʃən/Definition, CEFR level C1, pronunciation, examples, and quiz.
Listen pronunciation
Definition
nounThe total destruction of something.
nounThe concealing or covering of something.
Sentence Examples
The bombing resulted in total obliteration of the village.
The goal was to achieve complete obliteration of the enemy.
The heavy bombing caused the complete obliteration of the city.
Synonyms & Antonyms
Synonyms:
Antonyms:
None
CEFR Practice Quiz
The town's ____ by the volcanic eruption left no structures standing at all.
CEFR Practice Quiz (Alternate)
The massive explosion resulted in the total ____ of the abandoned building and its surroundings.
Word Origin & History
Etymology tree English obliterate Proto-Indo-European *-tis Proto-Indo-European *-Hō Proto-Indo-European *-tiHō Proto-Italic *-tiō Latin -tiō Latin -ātiōlbor. Old French -ationbor. Middle English -acioun English -ation English -ion English obliteration From obliterate + -ion.
Literary Quotations & Historical Citations
"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:
"“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:
"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:
"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:
Explore More C1 Vocabulary Words
CEFR Practice Quiz
The town's ____ by the volcanic eruption left no structures standing at all.
CEFR Practice Quiz (Alternate)
The massive explosion resulted in the total ____ of the abandoned building and its surroundings.