annihilo

Forms

annihilō (present infinitive annihilāre, perfect active annihilāvī, supine annihilātum); first conjugation^[1]

Etymology

It is formed from Latin ad- + nihilum (“nothing”) in Late Latin.^[2][3] It was also written ⟨adnihilō⟩ and, in medieval texts, ⟨annichilō⟩.^[4][5][1]

Earliest recorded meaning

Jerome is the first to mention it, as one of the words with which a contemporary translator rendered a Greek verb meaning “to treat as nothing, despise”; he counts adnihilasti among the monstrosities of the unskilled.^[4][2][6]

Semantic evolution

In Christian writers of Late Antiquity it came to mean “to bring to nothing, destroy”: Cassiodorus says the devil wished to annihilate the image of God, Jordanes speaks of men who ruined the state by luxurious living, and Gregory the Great uses it of something that cheapens a bishop's reverence.^[4]

Medieval Latin used it widely for the destruction of buildings, documents and crops and for the ruin of a town or a bishopric,^[5][7] and also for annulling a decision.^[1] Scholastic philosophers used it for the reduction of a created thing to nothing, which John Peckham judged to be more than dying or decaying.^[7] English took annihilate from its past participle in the 1520s.^[3]

Timeline

• c. 383–419/420 AD – Jerome cites adnihilasti as a translator's word for “you despised”.^[4][8]
• c. 485–c. 580 AD – Cassiodorus uses it for destroying the image of God.^[4][8]
• 540–604 AD – Gregory the Great uses it of reverence brought to nothing.^[4][8]
• 1220 – A letter asks that what had been fortified in a castle be pulled down and destroyed.^[7]
• 1520s – English borrows annihilate from its past participle.^[3]

Meanings

Verb

1. (Late Latin) To treat as nothing, despise.^[2][4]
2. (Late Latin) To bring to nothing, destroy utterly, annihilate.^[4][6][1]
3. (Medieval Latin) To lay waste, demolish (buildings, documents); to ruin or impoverish (a place, a church).^[5][7]
4. (Medieval Latin) To use up, squander.^[5]
5. (Medieval Latin) To annul, invalidate.^[1]
6. (Medieval Latin, philosophy) To reduce (a created thing) to nothing.^[7]

Word family

• annihilātiō

Related words

• annullō
• English annihilate

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c Georges, Karl Ernst (1913–1918), Ausführliches lateinisch-deutsches Handwörterbuch, 8th ed., ed. Heinrich Georges, Hannover; Leipzig: Hahn
3. ^ a b c Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
4. ^ a b c d e f g h Thesaurus linguae Latinae (1900–), Leipzig: Teubner; Berlin: De Gruyter; open-access ed., Munich: Bayerische Akademie der Wissenschaften
5. ^ a b c d Mittellateinisches Wörterbuch bis zum ausgehenden 13. Jahrhundert (1967–), Munich: C. H. Beck; Bayerische Akademie der Wissenschaften
6. ^ a b Lewis, Charlton T.; Short, Charles (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
7. ^ a b c d e Latham, R. E., D. R. Howlett, R. K. Ashdowne, et al. (1975–2013), Dictionary of Medieval Latin from British Sources, London: British Academy / Oxford University Press
8. ^ a b c Köbler, Gerhard (2010), Lateinisches Abkunfts- und Wirkungswörterbuch für Altertum und Mittelalter, online ed., koeblergerhard.de