erode

Etymology

The OED, Klein and Weekley take it as borrowed from French éroder, from Latin ērōdō (“to gnaw away, consume”);^[2][3][4] the American Heritage Dictionary and Merriam-Webster derive it directly from Latin;^[5][6] Hoad and the Oxford Dictionary of English allow either.^[7][8] Barnhart and Etymonline regard it as a back-formation from erosion, itself recorded from the 1540s, with possible influence or direct borrowing from French.^[9][10] The Latin verb is formed from ē- (“out, away”), a variant of ex-, and rōdō (“to gnaw”),^[8][9][10] the source of rodent.^[10][9] Etymonline calls the origin of rōdō uncertain, possibly an extended form of Proto-Indo-European *red- (“to scrape, scratch, gnaw”),^[10] and the American Heritage Dictionary also refers it to that root.^[5]

Earliest recorded meaning

Of acids, canker or ulceration, to destroy by slow consumption: 1612, in Pomarius.^[2][9]

Semantic evolution

The word began as a term for what acids and ulcers do to the body.^[2][10] Johnson (1755) defined it as "to canker, or eat away; to corrode", and quoted Bacon's natural history and Wiseman, on blood that "erodes the vessel".^[11] The geological use, of currents and glaciers wearing away land, starts in 1830 in Lyell's Principles of Geology, which also has the sense of forming a channel by wearing it away.^[2][10] The intransitive sense "to undergo erosion" is dated to 1863 in Dana's Manual of Geology by the OED,^[2] and "by 1905" by Etymonline.^[10] The Shorter Oxford dates the figurative transitive sense, making something gradually less valuable or strong, to the mid 20th century, and the intransitive sense, wearing away or diminishing, to the early 20th.^[12] The medical use continues in the modern dictionaries.^[13][14][8]

Timeline

• 1612 – of acids or ulcers, to destroy by slow consumption.^[2][9]
• 1815 – in the etymological sense of gnawing away, in Kirby and Spence's Introduction to Entomology.^[2]
• 1830 – of currents and glaciers, to wear away land; to form a channel by wearing it away.^[2][10]
• 1863 – intransitive, to undergo erosion.^[2]
• mid 20th century – figurative, to make gradually less valuable or strong.^[12]

Meanings

Verb

1. Of wind, water or other natural agents, to wear away soil, rock or land: The tide has eroded the headland.^[5][8][13]
2. To eat into or away by slow destruction, as acid or disease does: Stomach acid can erode tooth enamel.^[5][6][15]
3. To wear down by friction or by rubbing or scraping away small particles.^[6][14]
4. To form something, such as a valley or gully, by wearing away.^[5][15][16]
5. To reduce or destroy gradually; to make weaker or less valuable: Years of scandal eroded public trust in the council.^[5][13][14]
6. To be worn away or to deteriorate gradually.^[8][12][16]
7. (pathology) Of a disease, to destroy bodily tissue gradually, as by ulceration.^[14][13][8]

Word family

• erodibility
• erodible
• noneroding

Related words

• erosion
• rodent
• corrode
• erose

References

1. ^ a b Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
3. ^ Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
4. ^ Weekley, Ernest (1921), An Etymological Dictionary of Modern English, London: John Murray
5. ^ a b c d e f The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
6. ^ a b c Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
7. ^ Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
8. ^ a b c d e f Stevenson, Angus, ed. (2010), Oxford Dictionary of English, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
9. ^ a b c d e Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
10. ^ a b c d e f g h Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
11. ^ Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.
12. ^ a b c Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
13. ^ a b c d Soanes, Catherine; Stevenson, Angus, eds. (2004), Concise Oxford English Dictionary, 11th ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
14. ^ a b c d Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins
15. ^ a b Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House
16. ^ a b The Chambers Dictionary (2014), 13th ed., Edinburgh: Chambers