OBLIVION

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 Dictionary entry overview: What does oblivion mean? 

• OBLIVION (noun)
  The noun OBLIVION has 2 senses:

1. the state of being disregarded or forgotten

2. total forgetfulness

  Familiarity information: OBLIVION used as a noun is rare.

 Dictionary entry details 

• OBLIVION (noun)

Sense 1

Meaning:

The state of being disregarded or forgotten

Classified under:

Nouns denoting stable states of affairs

Synonyms:

limbo; oblivion

Hypernyms ("oblivion" is a kind of...):

obscurity (an obscure and unimportant standing; not well known)

Sense 2

Meaning:

Total forgetfulness

Classified under:

Nouns denoting cognitive processes and contents

Synonyms:

oblivion; obliviousness

Context example:

he sought the great oblivion of sleep

Hypernyms ("oblivion" is a kind of...):

forgetfulness (unawareness caused by neglectful or heedless failure to remember)

Derivation:

oblivious (failing to keep in mind)

 Context examples 

Sleep had become to him oblivion, and each day that he awoke, he awoke with regret.

(Martin Eden, by Jack London)

Poor girl, she has so much to forget that it is no wonder that sleep, if it brings oblivion to her, does her good.

(Dracula, by Bram Stoker)

Let her identity, her connection with yourself, be buried in oblivion: you are bound to impart them to no living being.

(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)

Events of every description, changes, alienations, removals—all, all must be comprised in it, and oblivion of the past— how natural, how certain too!

(Persuasion, by Jane Austen)

I know likewise, that writers of travels, like dictionary-makers, are sunk into oblivion by the weight and bulk of those who come last, and therefore lie uppermost.

(Gulliver's Travels into several remote nations of the world, by Jonathan Swift)

Sometimes he was all but submerged, swimming through oblivion with a faltering stroke; and again, by some strange alchemy of soul, he would find another shred of will and strike out more strongly.

(Love of Life and Other Stories, by Jack London)

I, too, leaned upon the rail and gazed longingly into the sea, with the certainty that sooner or later I should be sinking down, down, through the cool green depths of its oblivion.

(The Sea-Wolf, by Jack London)

For I own it seems to me, my dear Mr. Copperfield, said Mrs. Micawber, who always fell back on me, I suppose from old habit, to whomsoever else she might address her discourse at starting, that the time is come when the past should be buried in oblivion; when my family should take Mr. Micawber by the hand, and Mr. Micawber should take my family by the hand; when the lion should lie down with the lamb, and my family be on terms with Mr. Micawber.

(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)

This man, whose name was Beaufort, was of a proud and unbending disposition and could not bear to live in poverty and oblivion in the same country where he had formerly been distinguished for his rank and magnificence.

(Frankenstein, by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley)

He hated the oblivion of sleep.

(Martin Eden, by Jack London)