Oblivions

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. A state of being completely forgotten or unknown; the condition of being disregarded and unnoticed; a concept describing a total lack of awareness or consciousness about something or someone
2. An absence from memory or awareness where entities or events fade into insignificance; a condition where existence is overlooked or ignored; a philosophical idea concerning the non-existence of consciousness
3. The condition in which something is rendered utterly unknown and unremembered; a situation in which matters are neglected and become non-existent; a term representing the void of awareness or perception

Etymology: The plural here is simply the plural of "oblivion", so it describes several states or instances of being forgotten rather than a new sense of the word. The noun itself goes back to Latin "oblivio", meaning forgetfulness, which was built from "oblivisci", to forget. English took the word through Anglo-Norman French and into Middle English, where it kept the plain sense of forgetting. The word's meaning has a notable twist of its own: it did not start out as a general term for being unnoticed. Its core idea is simply the loss of memory, and the sense of a total absence of awareness grew out of that root meaning over time.

Synonyms: forgetfulness, unawareness, obscurity, amnesia, ignorance

Antonyms: memory, consciousness, awareness, remembrance, recognition