Other forms: obliterated, obliterating, obliterates
To obliterate something is to wipe it out completely. Not damaged — gone, with nothing left to show it was there.
The totality is the whole word, which is why it suits bombing, erosion and fog, since all three remove something from view entirely. It also works on records and memories. Sport uses it as hyperbole for a heavy defeat. The Latin root means to strike out letters, which is exactly the picture of erasing something written. The noun is obliteration and it is as absolute as the verb.
1verbobliterateTo destroy or remove something completely.
“The village was obliterated in a single night.”
To obliterate is to blot out. Latin oblitterātus meant blotted out, effaced or erased, and also forgotten, so obliteration was first about destroying the record of a thing rather than the thing itself.
Proto-Indo-European
*h₁lengʷʰ-
Latin
obliterātus
English, today
obliterate
Built from
(start of 17th century) From earlier obliterat, Latin obliterātus, oblitterātus (“having been blotted out, effaced, erased; having been forgotten”) (see -ate). 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:
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA