Annihilation is total destruction, leaving nothing. Threatened with annihilation, complete annihilation, the annihilation of the army.
In physics it is exact rather than rhetorical: when a particle meets its antiparticle both vanish and their mass becomes energy. That is not destruction in the everyday sense but conversion, and it is the most complete energy release known.
1nounannihilationTotal destruction, leaving nothing.
“Scientists warned that a nuclear war could lead to the annihilation of whole cities.”
annihilation is a destruction.
Latin annihilatio comes from ad, to, plus nihil, nothing — a reducing to nothing.
Latin
annihilātiō
Middle French
annihilation
English, today
annihilation
From Middle French annihilation, from Latin annihilātiō. by surface analysis, annihilate + -ion.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA