erasure
nounUS /ɪˈɹeɪʃɚ/ · UK /ɪˈɹeɪʒə/
Etymology From Latin ērādō (“to erase”) + -tūra, equivalent to erase + -ure.
1
The action of erasing; deletion; obliteration.
- An inroad on the strongbox, or an erasure in the ledger, or a missummation in a fitted account, could hardly have surprised him more disagreeably.1817 December 31 (indicated as 1818), [Walter Scott], Rob Roy. […], volume (please specify |volume=I to III), Edinburgh: […] James Ballantyne and Co. for Archibald Constable and Co. […]; London: Longman, Hurst, Rees, Orme, and Brown, →OCLC:
- The past was erased, the erasure was forgotten, the lie became truth.1949 June 8, George Orwell [pseudonym; Eric Arthur Blair], “Chapter 7”, in Nineteen Eighty-Four: A Novel, London: Secker & Warburg, →OCLC; republished [Australia]: Project Gutenberg of Australia, August 2001:
2
The state of having been erased; total blankness.
- Bush, even when he had the floor, grimaced as he spoke, except on several occasions when he lost his way and a look of total erasure came over him, a blank, stricken stare for which the French, alas, have the most apt expression: like a cow watching a train go by.2004 October 18, The New Yorker:
3
The place where something has been erased.
- There were several erasures on the paper.
4
Human sciences, Sciences, Social science, Sociology A tendency to ignore or conceal an element of society.
- bisexual erasure
- Synonyms
- cancelation, cancellation, canceling, cancelling, deleting, deletion, erasing, obliterating, obliteration, wiping, blankness
- Derived terms
- bi-erasure, erasure code, erasure poem, erasure poetry, mechanical erasure, nonerasure, trans-erasure, under erasure, unerasure
- Hyponyms
- type erasure