Definition of "annihilation"

annihilation

/əˌnaɪ.əˈleɪ.ʃən/

noun
countable and uncountable, plural annihilations
1. The act of destroying or otherwise turning into nothing, or nonexistence.
2. The act of destroying the form or combination of parts under which a thing exists, so that the name can no longer be applied to it.
3. The state of being annihilated.
  Quotations
  If you ask how religion thus falls on the thorns and faces death, and in the very act annuls annihilation, I cannot explain the matter, for it is religion's secret, and to understand it you must yourself have been a religious man of the extremer type.
  1902, William James, The Varieties of Religious Experience, Lecture 2
4. (physics) The process of a particle and its corresponding antiparticle combining to produce energy.