obliterate

Etymology

It is borrowed from Latin oblitterātus, also oblīterātus, the past participle of oblitterō (“to cause to be forgotten, cause to disappear, efface”), also oblīterō.^{[2][3][4][5][6][7]} The Latin verb is probably formed from ob- (“against, over”) and littera (“letter”), the source of letter.^[2][5][8][6] Barnhart and Etymonline take it as abstracted from the phrase ob litterās scrībere (“to write across letters, strike out letters”),^[3][4] and the American Heritage Dictionary adds oblītus, the past participle of oblīvīscor (“to forget”).^[9] Skeat says it was associated with oblinō (“to smear over”), with no etymological link.^[10] The borrowing may have been influenced by, or at times taken from, Middle French oblitérer,^[3] recorded from 1512.^[2]

Earliest recorded meaning

To wipe out a memory or feeling, or do away with a quality: 1548, in Hall's Vnion.^[2][5] Older dictionaries give later dates: 1600 in Barnhart,^[3] about 1600 in Etymonline,^[4] 1590–1600 in Dictionary.com.^[7]

Semantic evolution

The word entered English for erasing things from the mind, and the literal Latin sense of blotting out writing follows in 1578.^[2] From 1607 it was used of anything visible,^[2] and Johnson (1755) still defines it as to efface writing, or to wear out or destroy, as wars destroy monuments.^[11] In pathology and biology, from 1671, it was used of a vessel or cavity closed up by tissue.^[2] The main modern sense, to destroy completely or lay waste, is recorded only from 1798.^[2] Post-office use, for cancelling a stamp with a postmark, dates from about 1840.^[2][12] The past-participial adjective, "blotted out", is recorded from about 1600, first in Scottish use, and later in poetry;^[2][12] obliteration appears in 1658, in Phillips' dictionary.^[3]

Timeline

• 1548 – to wipe out a memory; to destroy a quality.^[2][5]
• 1578 – to blot out something written.^[2]
• c. 1600 – adjective, blotted out.^[2]
• 1607 – to cause something visible to disappear.^[2]
• 1658 – the noun obliteration.^[3]
• 1671 – to close up a vessel or cavity with tissue.^[2]
• 1798 – to destroy completely.^[2]
• 1826 – adjective, of markings on an insect, indistinct.^[2]
• c. 1840 – to cancel a postage stamp.^[2][12]

Meanings

Verb

1. To destroy completely, leaving no trace: The flood obliterated the village.^[13][5][2]
2. To make something written or visible impossible to read or see; to erase or efface: Rain had obliterated the footprints.^[5][2][12]
3. To remove from the mind or memory: A long illness obliterated his memory of that summer.^[5][2][12]
4. (medicine, biology) To close up or remove a passage or cavity, as with tissue.^[5][2][12]
5. To cancel a postage stamp with a postmark.^[5][2][12]

Adjective

1. (poetic) Blotted out, obliterated.^[5][2][12]
2. (entomology) Of markings, faint or indistinct.^[5][2]

Word family

• obliteration
• obliterator
• obliterative
• unobliterated

Related words

• letter
• alliteration
• oblivion

References

1. ^ a b Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x y Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
3. ^ a b c d e f Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
4. ^ a b c Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
5. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
6. ^ a b Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
7. ^ a b Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House
8. ^ Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
9. ^ The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
10. ^ Skeat, Walter W. (1911), A Concise Etymological Dictionary of the English Language, new ed., Oxford: Clarendon Press
11. ^ Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.
12. ^ a b c d e f g h Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
13. ^ Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins