Emily Dickinson Lexicon

OB-LIT'ER-ATE, v.t. [L. oblitero; ob and litera, letter.]

1. To efface; to erase or blot out any thing written; or to efface any thing engraved. A writing may be obliterated by erasure, by blotting, or by the slow operation of time or natural causes.
2. To efface; to wear out; to destroy by time or other means; as, to obliterate ideas or impressions; to obliterate the monuments of antiquity; to obliterate reproach. Hale. Locke.
3. To reduce to a very low or imperceptible state. The torpor of the vascular system and obliterated pulse. Med. Repos.