Oblivion can refer to the state of something that is not remembered or thought about any more, or to the state of being unconscious or unaware. It also sometimes refers to the state of being destroyed.

// After so many days of exhaustingly difficult work, he longed for the oblivion of sleep.

// The sandcastles of summer had long since been swept into oblivion by the ocean waves.

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“... automobiles with manual transmission appear to be on a road to oblivion as technology transforms cars into computers on wheels.” — Michael Diedtke, The Columbian (Vancouver, Washington), 3 Jan. 2026

Oblivion asks forgetfulness of us in both its meaning and etymology. The word’s Latin source, oblīvīscī, means “to forget, to put out of mind,” and since its 14th century adoption into English, oblivion has hewed close to meanings having to do with forgetting. The word has also long had an association with the River Lethe which according to Greek myth flowed through the Underworld and caused anyone who drank its water to forget their past; 17th century poet John Milton wrote about “Lethe the River of Oblivion” in Paradise Lost. The adjective oblivious (“lacking remembrance, memory, or mindful attention”) followed oblivion a century later, but not into oblivion—both words have proved obdurate against the erosive currents of time.