efface

Etymology

It is inherited from Middle English effacen,^[2][3] borrowed from Middle French effacer,^[3][4][5] from Old French esfacier (“to wipe out, destroy”),^[6][3][2] literally "to remove the face".^[6] The Old French verb is recorded from the 12th century,^[6] and Anglo-Norman had it from the first half of the 12th century for blotting out, destroying and disfiguring the face.^[7] It is formed from es- (“out”), from Latin ex-,^[6][3][2][4] and face (“face, appearance”),^[6][3][8] from faciēs (“face”).^[6][9]

Earliest recorded meaning

To wipe out or pardon an offence: 1490, in Caxton's Arte and Crafte to Knowe Well to Dye.^[9][3][10] The first English sense is thus figurative, and the Shorter Oxford and the Oxford Dictionary of English both give pardon or absolution for an offence as the oldest meaning.^[11][10]

Semantic evolution

The literal use for rubbing out writing, marks or painted figures has its first OED quotation only in Cotgrave's dictionary of 1611,^[9] although the French verb had that range much earlier.^[7] Johnson (1755) listed destroying a painted or carved form, making something illegible, and wearing away, quoting Locke's "the first breath of wind effaces" and Pope's "fluent Shakespeare scarce effac'd a line".^[12] The sense of pardoning a sin lasted until the mid 18th century, in a line of J. Wesley's: "And all my Sins efface".^[11] From the 18th century the word could also mean to cast something into the shade.^[9] The reflexive use, to make oneself insignificant, was modelled on French s'effacer and is first recorded in the OED's own entry of 1891.^[9] Obstetrics adopted the verb in the 20th century for the distortion of the cervix.^[9]

Timeline

• 1490 – figuratively, to wipe out an offence or a mental impression.^[9][3]
• 1611 – to rub out writing, figures or a mark from a surface.^[9] The Shorter Oxford puts the general sense of removing all trace in the early 17th century too.^[11]
• 1717 – to cast utterly into the shade, in a letter of Lady M. W. Montagu.^[9]
• 1737 – to strike words or sentences from a text, in Pope.^[9]
• 1843 – to make a visible feature disappear entirely.^[9]
• 1891 – reflexive, to reduce oneself to insignificance.^[9]
• 1913 – in obstetrics, of the cervix or umbilicus, to distort until it can't be made out.^[9]

Meanings

Verb

1. To rub out or erase something written, painted or marked: Decades of rain had effaced the names on the gravestones.^[13][4][9]
2. To make something disappear completely; to wipe out or obliterate, especially a memory or impression: Nothing could efface that afternoon from his mind.^[13][4][9]
3. Reflexively, to make oneself inconspicuous, out of modesty or timidity.^[13][9]
4. To put utterly in the shade.^[9][14]
5. (obstetrics) To distort the cervix or a similar part until it can't be recognized, usually through distension.^[9]
6. (obsolete, late 15th to mid 18th century) To pardon an offence or obtain absolution for it.^[11][10]

Word family

• effaceable
• effacement
• effacer
• ineffaceable
• self-effacing
• uneffaced

Related words

• face
• deface

Usage notes

Merriam-Webster Unabridged and the American Heritage Dictionary also enter the ballet term effacé, facing the audience obliquely, from the past participle of the French verb.^[4][2]

References

1. ^ Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
3. ^ a b c d e f g Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
4. ^ a b c d e Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
5. ^ Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House
6. ^ a b c d e f Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
7. ^ a b Anglo-Norman Dictionary (AND2), Aberystwyth University, anglo-norman.net (2nd ed., 2005–)
8. ^ Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
9. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
10. ^ a b c Stevenson, Angus, ed. (2010), Oxford Dictionary of English, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
11. ^ a b c d Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
12. ^ Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.
13. ^ a b c Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins
14. ^ Kay, Christian; Roberts, Jane; Samuels, Michael; Wotherspoon, Irené, eds. (2009), Historical Thesaurus of the Oxford English Dictionary, Oxford: Oxford University Press; online edition (2024)