: the state or fact of being completely destroyed or obliterated : the act of annihilating something or the state of being annihilated
The late 1940s and '50s were so pervaded by a general fear of nuclear annihilation that the era was known as the Age of Anxiety. Charles Krauthammer
For a literary culture that fears it is on the brink of total annihilation, we are awfully cavalier about the Great Male Novelists of the last century. Katie Roiphe
… few experts believe that either regime would risk annihilation by actually launching a nuke in anger. Michael Elliott
The Cretaceous Extinction, whatever its cause, was one of the two most awesome annihilations of life in the history of the world. John McPhee
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physics: the combination of a particle and its antiparticle (such as an electron and a positron) that results in the subsequent total conversion of the particles into energy
Both the creation and annihilation of antimatter have been observed in nuclear accelerators (atom-smashers). Harding E. Smith
The annihilation reactions are the most efficient sources of energy known, for in them the entire mass of both particles is converted into pure energy. George Greenstein