I. ə̇ˈrās, ēˈ-, chiefly Brit -āz verb
( -ed/-ing/-s )
Etymology: Latin erasus, past participle of eradere, from e- + radere to scratch, scrape — more at rat
transitive verb
1.
a.
(1) : to rub or scrape out (as letters or figures written, engraved, or painted)
erased the chalk marks
a typing error neatly erased
(2) : to remove (recorded matter) from a magnetic storage medium (as magnetic tape) so as to make the surface available for a new magnetic pattern : demagnetize
the recording can be erased and the tape used again
also : to subject (as a magnetic tape) to erasure
b. : to remove marks, symbols, or other communicating devices from
the school children erased the blackboard
2.
a. : to remove from existence or memory as if by erasing : wipe out : obliterate
a plan to erase the boundary between the countries
time had erased the bitter memories
specifically : to get rid of (a person) by murder
the efforts of a group of murderers to erase a blinded man — Anthony Boucher
b. : to nullify the effect or force of : remove from the necessity of consideration : make quite insignificant or inconsequential : annul
the … statement had erased in one day months of patient work — W.J.Jordan
c. : offset , neutralize , balance
profit taking erased most of these gains — Wall Street Journal
intransitive verb
1. : to yield to being erased
marks that erase easily
tape that erases when recorded over
2. : to remove marks or signals from something
a tape recorder that erases at a higher speed
Synonyms:
expunge , blot ( out ), efface , obliterate , delete , cancel : erase stresses the fact of removal of symbols or impressions without important damage to the surface involved and may imply a resulting blank usable for a new symbol or impression
erase a misspelled word
a child erasing numbers from a slate
so violently have they hated the soul of the modern man that they have wished to erase from the record of history every thought and deed since the Renaissance — J.W.Krutch
expunge , especially in relation to tangible and simple action, has been influenced by sponge and stresses a complete washing out or off of whatever is affected or indicates its complete removal from consideration
expunge a false report
irrelevant testimony expunged from a court proceeding
a woman's history, you know: certain chapters expunged — George Meredith
blot ( out ) suggests the complete covering or obscuring of an impression by smearing or blurring over
lines of the manuscript blotted out by spilled ink
the same process by which Communist literature first blackened, and then blotted out altogether, Trotsky's exploits in the civil war — Times Literary Supplement
efface suggests complete removal of an impression, sometimes through slow attrition and wear
inscriptions on a pyramid effaced by time
a cliché, a worn counter of a word, with its original meaning all effaced, and even its secondary meaning now only just visible — Havelock Ellis
obliterate is perhaps the most forceful of this group in connoting utter, complete, and inexorable removal or elimination of all traces of impressions
a flash of lightning obliterated the first letter of ‘Caesar’ on a statue of Augustus — John Buchan
the Navajo was careful to obliterate every trace of their temporary occupation — Willa Cather
With no suggestion of either the destruction or the preservation of the marks or symbols involved, delete now stresses simple exclusion
delete a word unnecessarily repeated
whenever you feel an impulse to perpetrate a piece of exceptionally fine writing, obey it — wholeheartedly — and delete it before sending your manuscript to press — A.T.Quiller-Couch
cancel , formerly indicating to cross out, now stresses invalidation, nullification, or reduction to insignificance
the laboratory door does not lock behind him and bar his return any more than it swung shut to imprison Darwin and forever cancel his status as a naturalist — American Naturalist
Many of these words show semantic developments to ideas of destroying, killing, annihilating
the killers may in time succeed in erasing me — V.A.Kravchenko
the few survivors of the brilliant generation of young Englishmen expunged by the first World War — Jack Winocour
they [enemy soldiers] were just blotted out — Nevil Shute
and to ideas of balancing, offsetting, equaling, nullifying with equal opposing force
the … mixture of races canceling each other's beliefs — T.S.Eliot
a hideous phrase which no amount of palliation can ever quite obliterate — P.E.More
The semantic extensions may retain nuances of meaning implied in older uses.
II. transitive verb
: to delete from a computer storage device