erase

Etymology

It is borrowed from Latin ērāsus, the past participle of ērādō (“to scrape out, scrape off”),^[2][3][4][5] through its participial stem ērās-.^[6][7][8] The Latin verb is formed from ē-, a form of ex- (“out”) used before r, and rādō (“to scrape, scratch”),^{[3][9][10][11]} which the American Heritage Dictionary traces to the Indo-European root Proto-Indo-European *rēd-.^[9] The same Latin verb is the source of raze, razor, rascal and abrade.^[12][5] The OED suggests that in some early examples the English word may be a variant of the obsolete arace (“to uproot”).^[6] Johnson (1755) derived it instead from French raser.^[13]

Earliest recorded meaning

To scrape or rub out something written or engraved; to strike out or obliterate: 1605, in William Camden's Remaines.^[6][3][4] Etymonline dates the word to about 1600,^[5] and the Shorter Oxford and the Oxford Dictionary of English put its first use in the late 16th century, as a term of heraldry: the head or limb of an animal erased is shown with a jagged, torn-off edge.^[7][8]

Semantic evolution

The heraldic use survives in the participle erased, which Johnson (1755) explained as "plucked off".^[7][13] From rubbing out marks on a page the verb was extended to wiping something from the mind or memory (1695)^[6][7] and, rarely, to destroying something utterly (1728).^[6] Its technical history follows recording: from 1945 it was used of removing the signal from magnetic tape,^[6][5] and since 1948 a noun erase named that action, chiefly in combinations such as erase head.^[6][7] In computing, to erase data is to replace it on a storage device with characters that represent no data.^[14] In American criminal slang of the 1930s, erase meant to kill.^[15] The derivatives followed the verb: erasure is recorded from 1734 and eraser from 1790, in American English;^[2][3] an eraser is especially a piece of rubber or plastic for rubbing out pencil or ink.^[7]

Timeline

• late 16th century – heraldic: shown with a jagged edge, as if torn off.^[7][8]
• 1605 – to scrape or rub out writing or engraving.^[6][3][4]
• 1695 – figurative, to wipe from the mind or memory.^[6]
• 1728 – to destroy utterly (rare).^[6]
• 1734 – erasure.^[2][3]
• 1790 – eraser, in American English.^[2][3]
• 1931 – American slang, to kill.^[15]
• 1945 – to remove the recording from magnetic tape.^[6][5]
• 1948 – noun, the act of erasing a tape.^[6]

Meanings

Verb

1. To rub or scrape out something written, drawn or engraved: She erased the pencil notes in the margin.^[14][4][6]
2. To remove the marks from a surface: The teacher erased the whiteboard.^[4]
3. To remove every trace of something; to wipe out, especially from the memory: Nothing could erase the shame of that evening.^[14][6][7]
4. To remove a recording from magnetic tape or another recording medium.^[14][4][6]
5. (computing) To replace the data on a storage device with characters standing for an absence of data.^[14]
6. (slang) To kill.^[15]

Noun

1. The act of erasing a tape or other recording medium, mostly in combinations such as erase head.^[6][7]

Word family

• erasability
• erasable
• eraser
• erasion
• unerasable

Related words

• erasure
• raze
• razor
• rascal
• abrade

References

1. ^ a b Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d Barnhart, Robert K., ed. (1995), The Barnhart Concise Dictionary of Etymology, New York: HarperCollins
3. ^ a b c d e f g Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
4. ^ a b c d e f Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
5. ^ a b c d e Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
6. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
7. ^ a b c d e f g h i Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
8. ^ a b c Stevenson, Angus, ed. (2010), Oxford Dictionary of English, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
9. ^ a b The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
10. ^ Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
11. ^ Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
12. ^ Ayto, John (2005), Word Origins: The Secret Histories of English Words from A to Z, 2nd ed., London: A & C Black
13. ^ a b Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.
14. ^ a b c d e Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins
15. ^ a b c Green, Jonathon (2010), Green's Dictionary of Slang, London: Chambers; digital ed. 2016–, https://greensdictofslang.com