Library / English Dictionary

ERASE

Pronunciation (US):

(GB):

 I. (verb) 

Sense 1

Meaning:

Remove from memory or existence

Example:

The Turks erased the Armenians in 1915

Synonyms:

erase; wipe out

Classified under:

Verbs of size, temperature change, intensifying, etc.

Hypernyms (to "erase" is one way to...):

kill (cause to die; put to death, usually intentionally or knowingly)

Sentence frames:

Somebody ----s something
Somebody ----s somebody
Something ----s somebody
Something ----s something

Derivation:

erasure (deletion by an act of expunging or erasing)

Sense 2

Meaning:

Wipe out digitally or magnetically recorded information

Example:

Who erased the files from my hard disk?

Synonyms:

delete; erase

Classified under:

Verbs of telling, asking, ordering, singing

Hypernyms (to "erase" is one way to...):

take away; take out (take out or remove)

Domain category:

recording; transcription (the act of making a record (especially an audio record))

Troponyms (each of the following is one way to "erase"):

demagnetise; demagnetize (erase (a magnetic storage device))

Sentence frame:

Somebody ----s something

Antonym:

record (register electronically)

Derivation:

eraser (an implement used to erase something)

Sense 3

Meaning:

Remove by or as if by rubbing or erasing

Example:

Please erase the formula on the blackboard--it is wrong!

Synonyms:

efface; erase; rub out; score out; wipe off

Classified under:

Verbs of touching, hitting, tying, digging

Hypernyms (to "erase" is one way to...):

cancel; delete (remove or make invisible)

"Erase" entails doing...:

rub (move over something with pressure)

Troponyms (each of the following is one way to "erase"):

sponge (erase with a sponge; as of words on a blackboard)

cut out; scratch out (strike or cancel by or as if by rubbing or crossing out)

Sentence frames:

Somebody ----s something
Something ----s something

Derivation:

eraser (an implement used to erase something)

erasure (deletion by an act of expunging or erasing)

erasure (a surface area where something has been erased)

erasure (a correction made by erasing)

Credits

 Context examples: 

In 2009, a team led by Dr. Joseph LeDoux of New York University (NYU) developed a way to erase a fear memory in rats without using drugs.

(How Our Memory Works, NIH, US)

The animals then underwent a process to erase the fear, called extinction training, in which the tone was repeatedly presented without shocks.

(How Our Memory Works, NIH, US)

On the white steps an obscene word, scrawled by some boy with a piece of brick, stood out clearly in the moonlight and I erased it, drawing my shoe raspingly along the stone.

(The Great Gatsby, by F. Scott Fitzgerald)