annihilate
v.v. to destroy something completely, leaving nothing left. In math, it means to cancel out a number or a term so it has no effect on the result.
v. to destroy or obliterate completely; to eliminate a mathematical term or expression from an equation by means of an inverse operation. Often used in the context of algebra to describe the cancellation of terms.
The two negative numbers annihilate each other in the equation.
When you add a number to its negative counterpart, they annihilate each other and the result is zero.
In advanced algebra, certain operators are designed to annihilate specific components of a tensor, effectively reducing the dimensionality of the system without losing essential information.
Borrowed from Latin annihilātus, perfect passive participle of annihilō (“to reduce to nothing”) (see -ate (verb-forming suffix)), from ad (“to”) + nihil (“nothing”) + -ō (verb-forming suffix).