obliteration

• Rhymes: -eɪʃən

obliteration (countable and uncountable, plural obliterations)

1. The total destruction of something.
   • 2023 May 18, Matt Fidler, “Stark before-and-after images reveal the obliteration of Bakhmut”, in The Guardian‎, →ISSN:

     Stark before-and-after images reveal the obliteration of Bakhmut [title]

2. The concealing or covering of something.
   • 1874, Thomas Hardy, chapter XI, in Far from the Madding Crowd. […], volumes (please specify |volume=I or II), London: Smith, Elder & Co., […], →OCLC:

     Winter, in coming to the country hereabout, advanced in well-marked stages, wherein might have been successively observed the retreat of the snakes, the transformation of the ferns, the filling of the pools, a rising of fogs, the embrowning by frost, the collapse of the fungi, and an obliteration by snow.

3. The cancellation, erasure or deletion of something.
   • 2001, David L. Lieber and Jules Harlow, Etz Hayim: Torah and Commentary, page 1134:

     Because he refused to protect his brother's name from obliteration, he acquires a derogatory nickname.

4. (medicine) The cancellation of the function, structure, or both of a vessel or organ; for example, the occlusion of the lumen of a duct, blood vessel, or lymphatic vessel, be it solely functional (as when squeezed by nearby mass effect or inflammation) or both structural and functional (as when clogged with thrombus, embolus, or fibrosis).

• obliterate

• obliviation, oblivion