obliterate
/əˈblɪtəˌɹeɪt/ verb C2- To destroy (someone or something) completely, leaving no trace; to annihilate, to wipe out.
- To hide (something) by covering it; to conceal, to obscure. · The rainclouds obliterated the sun as they swept across the sky.
- 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. · distal pulses obliterate until perfusion is restored
Plural obliterate · He/she/it obliterates · Past obliterated · Past participle obliterated · -ing form obliterating
Verb forms
- Base form
- obliterate
- He/she/it
- obliterates
- Past
- obliterated
- Past participle
- obliterated
- -ing form
- obliterating
From the library
It was easy to tell that they had been before the others, because in places their marks had been entirely obliterated by the others coming upon the top of them.
The ensuing commercial triumph was nothing short of meteoric, obliterating the entrenched orthodoxies of the early twentieth-century publishing industry.
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