annihilate
uh-NYE-uh-laytverbMeaning to destroy completely; also, to defeat by a huge margin
Memory hook AN-NIHIL-ATE: down to NIL (nothing). Zoe wins the checkers final 400 to nil; her brother is left with nothing at all. She annihilates him.
In the board game final, Maya annihilated her brothers, winning by four hundred points.
In context The volcano’s eruption annihilated the island’s forest; where thousands of trees had stood, there was nothing but gray ash.
Similar wipe out, erase, eliminate, crush
Opposite create, preserve
From Late Latin annihilare, “to bring to nothing”: ad- (to) + nihil (nothing).