1The state of being unaware or unconscious of what is happening around one.

1. 1.1 The state of being forgotten, especially by the public.
   his name will fade into oblivion

   Example sentencesExamples

   • Conscious or not, this film is strong and will be remembered long after many other sweeter, more conventional favourites have faded into unobtrusive oblivion.
   • Many coaches would have faded into assistant coach oblivion.
   • This is great, comprehensive stuff, worth preserving as the laserdisc format fades into oblivion.
   • As for 90 octane gasoline, there are strong indications that it will slowly fade into oblivion, hopefully unnoticed until it ceases to exist.
   • Perpetually regenerating, these ‘super stars’ never fade into oblivion, only becoming brighter and brighter.
   • And as Rudy discovered during a visit, urgent help is needed to prevent them from fading into oblivion.
   • Her voice, her message, had little appeal after the Second World War, and her name, once instantly recognized by all, faded into virtual oblivion.
   • Filed away in studios or tucked deeply in the archives of a few public collections, these prints lapsed from obscurity into oblivion.
   • For the unsuccessful ones, their ordeal simply fades into public oblivion.
   • These songs have set the trend for melody and have evoked the nostalgia, which was fading into oblivion.
   • While the old traditions still excite, craftspersons should be taught to cater to the contemporary market without which they will fade into oblivion.
   • He said many producers were neck-deep in debts and had faded into oblivion after producing a couple of films.
   • To be sure, Hong Kong isn't about to fade into oblivion.
   • So yet another great album was destined to fade into oblivion, before being picked up on by a few musos, plundered for sounds and style, hailed in retrospect as a classic and finally reissued on CD.
   • The immigrant recorded the urban culture in which he found himself; the native son preserved a rural world that was fading into oblivion.
   • While some of these games have retained popularity and are often played at a competitive level, there are many smaller games, which seem to have faded into oblivion.
   • Sunaryo says his installation is just to remind us of the large scenario that feeds the acts of war and violence, without which the weapons industry would fade into oblivion.
   • Last year this particular meet was not held, and had it not raced last weekend, the old favourite in the Tennant Creek sporting calendar could well have faded into oblivion.
   • This clearly didn't happen, and their choice then was whether the fade off into oblivion or whether to actually do something.
   • And like the unperfected Polaroid of a beginning we've forgotten, it should fade into oblivion in no time.

   Synonyms

   insignificance, inconspicuousness, unimportance, anonymity, lack of fame, lack of honour, lack of recognition, lack of renown, non-recognition, ingloriousness, limbo, twilight
2. 1.2 Destruction or extinction.
   only our armed forces stood between us and oblivion

   Example sentencesExamples

   • Of course, there are also those who do not subscribe to any religious faith and who may believe that death leads to nothingness, oblivion.
   • The star is not the dissolution of individualism into death and oblivion but the freezing of particularity into an eternal image of itself.
   • Lifting his hand, Shanza barely had time to wrap his blood-smeared fingers around the smooth shaft and yank before his knee collided with the ground and he sank into oblivion.
   • As she died, he doomed her soul to oblivion and swept his hand over Sonaro.
   • We were there to see what would have been the apocalypse, the oblivion, the end.
   • However, this can lead to a certain sort of oblivion, the void, if you will.
   • They will be killed and burned to ash, an eternal death, an absolute oblivion of which there is no return.
   • When I came to, four hours later, it occurred to me that I had gone through, but not experienced, the oblivion of death.
   • Communion and oblivion, sex and death, the mystery can be revealed - but it can be revealed only as totally inexplicable.
   • Democracy will make it's last fall into the oblivion of an Imperial corporate state bent on world destruction.
   • The next step is oblivion, sleepiness and coma.
   • During the Ottoman conquest of the end of that century Perperikon has been conquered, destroyed and doomed to oblivion.
   • As she felt enough power ready to burst her hand body to oblivion and death.
   • Not until life and existence implode into oblivion, nothingness, will the fighting end.
   • Somewhere out in eternity lie apocalypse and oblivion.
   • It feels as though I'm rescuing lives from oblivion, from utter destruction by the Garbage Truck of Fate.
   • The world was spiralling into oblivion, to nothingness.
   • I had to start thinking about this at the age of eleven, and used to keep myself up for hours contemplating my own death and oblivion.
   • They heard a great crashing and smashing of things before it gathered beyond the barricaded door breathing stillness and the chill of death and oblivion through the cracks in the door.
   • He decided it didn't matter; he was nothing, if oblivion wished to claim him in his sleep then let it.

   Synonyms

   obscurity, non-existence, limbo, void, vacuum, nothingness, nihility, nullity, extinction, anonymity, neglect, disregard

2Law
historical Amnesty or pardon.