Erase: The Latin predecessor, erasus, which means “to scratch or scrape,” refers to the removal of ink from parchment or paper or of incisions in clay by literally abrading the surface, which a modern rubber eraser does more gently.

However, the idea is that the content is destroyed from the roots up rather than from the surface down.ĥ. Eradicate: The Latin progenitor of this word, eradicatus, literally means “pull up from roots,” but the contemporary sense is similar to that of efface. The verb also refers to wearing away or making inconspicuous.Ĥ. Efface: This term, from an Anglo-French word literally meaning “un-face,” refers to the physical act of removal, but in the context of content, it suggests removing content so as to eliminate it from memory. Censor: The connotation of this word, originally a Latin term for an official charged with approving literary works, is of removal of content considered subversive or dangerous to the stability of the state and society.ģ. Bowdlerize: This word, derived from the surname of an editor notorious for removing words and passages he considered vulgar, connotes puritanical pruning.Ģ. But many of its synonyms come with a more potent and portentous sense of removal.ġ. The word delete did not loom large in the general vocabulary until the personal-computer revolution exposed us all to the keyboard key labeled with the word based on the Latin term delēre, meaning “to wipe out” or “destroy.” Modern usage is not so vivid the term is usually neutral in connotation.

Utterly synonym