erase
/ɪˈreɪz
/verb [with object]
1Rub out or remove (writing or marks): graffiti had been erased from the wall...
- A sudden smile can smooth it free of tension as easily as the tide can erase marks on sand.
- The kids glanced up at me, and some started erasing their marks.
- Remarkably, seven days later her mark was erased.
Synonyms
delete, rub out, wipe out/off;
cross out, strike out, score out, blot out, blank out, scratch out, scrape off, cancel, put a line through;
efface, expunge, excise, remove, obliterate, eliminate, remove all traces of;
censor, blue-pencil, redact, bowdlerize
technical dele
1.1Remove all traces of; destroy or obliterate: over twenty years the last vestiges of a rural economy were erased the magic of the landscape erased all else from her mind...
- If women participated in this myth-making in order to understand themselves and their place in the world, the traces have been erased or repressed.
- In some parts of Latin America, there's been an attempt to erase many of the traces of liberation theology in any of its forms.
- That element of my nightmare had been erased, diminished, dissolved.
Synonyms
destroy, wipe out, obliterate, eradicate, abolish, stamp out, quash, do away with, get rid of, remove, dissolve
1.2Remove recorded material from (a magnetic tape or medium); delete (data) from a computer’s memory: the tape could be magnetically erased and reused the file has been erased from the hard disk...
- Just like erasing a magnetic hard disk does not delete all the information stored on the disk, common erasure methods for tapes do not erase all of the data on the tape.
- The degaussing process is designed to erase the tape magnetically back to a virgin state.
- A file in the Recycle Bin is not erased from your computer until you select ‘Empty the Recycle Bin’ from the File menu.
Derivatives
erasable
/ adjective ...- An erasable programmable logic device is used to output discreet signals for controlling mirror positioning.
- You can get something similar, if you pick a DVD recorder that can handle erasable DVD-RAM disks.
- The erasable calendar posted on the east wall was too far away, so she scrabbled through the piles of loose papers cluttering her desktop until she found her appointment book.
Synonyms
removable, eradicable, washable, deletable, non-permanent
erasement
Origin
Late 16th century (originally as a heraldic term meaning 'represent the head or limb of an animal with a jagged edge'): from Latin eras- 'scraped away', from the verb eradere, from e- (variant of ex-) 'out' + radere 'scrape'.