Meaning & use
erasure
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Meanings
noununcountable
The act of removing writing, data or marks so that they are no longer there.
Grammar: Usually uncountable: the erasure of data.
Patterns
- the erasure of something
The erasure of the old files freed up space on the drive.
Careful erasure of the pencil lines left the paper clean.
The software offers secure erasure of personal data.
noununcountablefigurative
The failure to acknowledge a group's history, presence or contribution, as if it had never existed.
Grammar: Often followed by of: the erasure of a culture.
Patterns
- the erasure of something
- erasure of a group's history
The exhibit challenges the erasure of women from the story of science.
Activists protested the erasure of the village's name from maps.
Teachers discussed the erasure of Indigenous languages.
nouncountable
A place or mark on a surface where something has been rubbed out.
Grammar: Countable: you can see an erasure on the page.
Patterns
- an erasure on something
The manuscript had an erasure where the date once stood.
You could see a faint erasure under the new name.
The clerk noticed a suspicious erasure in the ledger.
Word forms
| plural | erasures |
|---|
Common combinations
- complete erasure
- The attack led to the complete erasure of the records.
- cultural erasure
- Museums can help prevent cultural erasure.
- erasure of history
- Many see the removal of the plaque as an erasure of history.
- secure erasure
- Secure erasure makes data impossible to recover.
- risk of erasure
- The language is at risk of erasure.
Synonyms and how they differ
- deletion
- Deletion is the usual word for removing computer files or text and sounds more technical than erasure.
- removal
- Removal is general and does not suggest rubbing out a trace.
- obliteration
- Obliteration is stronger, implying total destruction that leaves nothing behind.
- omission
- Omission means leaving something out, without the idea of rubbing out what was there.
Opposites
Word family
Commonly confused: erasure or erosion?
erasure vs erosion
Erosion is the gradual wearing away of land or rock by wind and water, not deliberate removal.
Practice
Historians criticized the ____ of the town's Black residents from the official history.
Choose one answer.
Erasure is the failure to acknowledge or recording of a group, as if it never existed. Erosion refers to gradual wearing away of land and does not fit.
Make it your own
Write a sentence using “erasure”, then check it and compare it with the examples above.