ANNIHILATING • E-FREE TRANSLATION.COM • Definition of Annihilating

Add this Dictionary
to your website!
See more options...

/ənˈaɪəlˌeɪtɪŋ/ Listen

verb

Annihilate v. t. (past & past part. annihilated; pres. part. annihilating)

To reduce to nothing or nonexistence; to destroy the existence of; to cause to cease to be. "It impossible for any body to be utterly annihilated."

To destroy the form or peculiar distinctive properties of, so that the specific thing no longer exists; as, to annihilate a forest by cutting down the trees. "To annihilate the army."

To destroy or eradicate, as a property or attribute of a thing; to make of no effect; to destroy the force, etc., of; as, to annihilate an argument, law, rights, goodness.

adjective

annihilating adj. Criticising vehemently and effectively; making light of; as, afire with annihilating invective.

Synonyms: devastating, withering.

See images of 'Annihilating'

Etymology of 'Annihilating'

Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48

Share |

"Annihilating" Quotes from Famous Books

... their maps; the number was too great. The forest of Gremilly, northeast of the point of attack, was just a great cloud shot through with lightning-flashes. A deluge of shells fell on the French positions, annihilating the first line, attacking the batteries and finding their mark as far back as the city of Verdun. At five o'clock in the afternoon the first waves of infantry assaulted and carried the advanced French positions in the woods of Haumont and Caures. ...

— World's War Events, Vol. II • Various

... and hidden for a moment from the eyes of his disciples? The demonstration of the simplest truths of astronomy destroyed at a blow the legends that were most significant to the early Christians by annihilating their symbolism. Well might the Church persecute Galileo for his proof of the world's mobility. Instinctively she perceived that in this one proposition was involved the principle of hostility to her most cherished conceptions, to the ...

— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 07 • Various

... coat Looked with contemptuous scorn? Oh yonder see, Carelessly basking in the mid-day sun They lie, and heed him not;—little thinking While there they triumph in the blaze of noon. How soon the dread annihilating hour Will come, and death seal up their eyes, Like his, forever. Now moralizer Retire! yet first proclaim this sacred truth; Chance rules not over Death; but, when a fly Falls to the earth, 'tis Heaven that ...

— A Book For The Young • Sarah French

... extinguished, as the first spark is extinguished which the steel gives birth to. He could not confide himself to Wilhelm; the understanding which this very confidence would give birth to between them, must separate them from each other. It was humiliating, it was annihilating. But for Sophie? No, how could he, after that, declare the love of his heart? how far below her should he be placed, as the child of poverty and shame! But the mother of the family? Yes, she was gentle and kind; with a maternal sentiment she extended to ...

— O. T. - A Danish Romance • Hans Christian Andersen

... relation to his violence of speech; that such excesses, on his part, made her think of a retired General whom she had once seen playing with toy soldiers, fighting and winning battles, carrying on sieges and annihilating enemies with little fortresses of wood and little armies of tin. Her husband's exaggerated emphasis was his box of toy soldiers, his military game. It harmlessly gratified in him, for his declining years, the military instinct; bad words, when sufficiently numerous and arrayed in their ...

— The Golden Bowl • Henry James

More quotes...