Word of the Day

: September 29, 2025

obliterate

verb uh-BLIT-uh-rayt

What It Means

To obliterate something is to destroy it completely so that nothing is left, to destroy utterly all trace, indication, or significance of it. It can also mean "to remove utterly from recognition or memory."

// The wave completely obliterated our sandcastles.

// The October snowstorm obliterated our hopes for a mild autumn.

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obliterate in Context

"A day or two after the fire, I happened to be passing when the demolition crew got around to clearing away the debris. ... Most of the books were singed but readable, with titles outlined in charcoal and price conveniently obliterated. They cost nothing more than the effort to dig them out." — Peter Wortsman, LitHub.com, 14 July 2025

Did You Know?

Obliterate has been preserved in our language for centuries, and that's not nothing! The earliest evidence in our files traces obliterate back to the mid-16th century as a word for removing something from memory. Soon after, English speakers began to use it for the specific act of blotting out or obscuring anything written, and eventually its meaning was generalized to removing anything from existence. In the meantime, physicians began using obliterate for the surgical act of filling or closing up a vessel, cavity, or passage with tissue, which would then cause the bodily part to collapse or disappear. Today obliterate thrives in the English lexicon with the various senses it has acquired over the years, including its final stamp on the language: "to cancel (something, especially a postage stamp)."