abrade

Etymology

It is borrowed from Latin abrādō (“to remove by rubbing, scrape off”),^[2][3][4][5] from ab- (“off, away”) and rādō (“to scrape”),^[2][6][7][4] the source of raze and razor.^[2][5][8] The Latin verb also meant to remove by erosion, to shave and to injure by scraping, and in post-classical Latin to erase, often so in British sources from the 11th century.^[2] The American Heritage Dictionary takes the verb of scraping to Proto-Indo-European *rēd-.^[3] English had already taken abrase, from the stem of the participle, in the 1590s.^[6][9]

Earliest recorded meaning

To wear down or smooth by rubbing or scraping, or to damage the skin in this way: 1675, in G. Harvey's book on the diseases of London.^[2][4] Barnhart has 1677,^[5] and Etymonline the 1670s.^[6]

Semantic evolution

M. Hale, before 1676, used the verb for removing something by rubbing or scraping,^[2] and Johnson (1755) quoted him on what running water abrades from the land, under the definition to rub off or to waste by degrees.^[10] The Shorter Oxford dates "wear down or injure by rubbing", literally and figuratively, only to the mid 18th century, and the sense "rub off" to the late 17th.^[9] Intransitive use, of a surface that wears away, is recorded from 1855.^[2] Merriam-Webster's Unabridged also records figurative use for wearing down or irritating a person.^[4]

Timeline

• 1675 – to wear down or smooth by rubbing; to damage the skin by rubbing.^[2][4]
• before 1676 – to remove or loosen by rubbing or scraping, in M. Hale.^[2]
• 1855 – intransitive, to become worn or to rub away.^[2]

Meanings

Verb

1. To scrape or wear away by friction; to erode: Wind-blown sand abraded the cliff face.^{[11][3][4][2]}
2. To hurt or irritate the skin by rubbing; to chafe.^[4][2]
3. To remove something by rubbing or scraping.^[2][9]
4. To roughen a surface: abraded fibres.^[4]
5. To wear down or exhaust a person or a person's spirit.^[4]
6. To become worn or scraped by abrasion: Cheap vinyl abrades quickly.^[3][4][2]

Word family

• abradable
• abrader
• unabraded
• abradant

Related words

• abrase
• abrasion
• abrasive
• raze
• razor
• erase

References

1. ^ Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
3. ^ a b c d The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
4. ^ a b c d e f g h i j Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
5. ^ a b c Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
6. ^ a b c Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
7. ^ Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
8. ^ Weekley, Ernest (1921), An Etymological Dictionary of Modern English, London: John Murray
9. ^ a b c Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
10. ^ Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.
11. ^ Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins