remove

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Contents

English [edit]

Etymology [edit]

From Middle English remeven, removen, from Anglo-Norman remuver, removeir, from Old French remouvoir, from Latin removēre, from re- + movēre (“to move”)

Pronunciation [edit]

Verb [edit]

remove (third-person singular simple present removes, present participle removing, simple past and past participle removed)

  1. (transitive) To move something from one place to another, especially to take away.
    He removed the marbles from the bag.
  2. (transitive) To murder.
  3. (cricket, transitive) To dismiss a batsman.
  4. (transitive) To discard, set aside (a thought, feeling etc.).
    • 1590, Edmund Spenser, The Faerie Queene, III.viii:
      Die had she rather in tormenting griefe, / Then any should of falsenesse her reproue, / Or loosenesse, that she lightly did remoue.
  5. (intransitive, now rare) To depart, leave.
    • 1485, Sir Thomas Malory, Le Morte Darthur, Book V:
      And loke that ye ryde streyte unto Sir Lucius and sey I bydde hym in haste to remeve oute of my londys.
  6. (intransitive) To change one's residence; to move.
    • Shakespeare
      Till Birnam wood remove to Dunsinane.
    • 1719 Daniel Defoe, Robinson Crusoe
      Now my life began to be so easy that I began to say to myself that could I but have been safe from more savages, I cared not if I was never to remove from the place where I lived.
    • 1834, David Crockett, A Narrative of the Life of, Nebraska 1987, p. 20:
      Shortly after this, my father removed, and settled in the same county, about ten miles above Greenville.

Antonyms [edit]

Derived terms [edit]

Translations [edit]

to take away
to murder someone
to discard, set aside
to change one's residence

Noun [edit]

remove (plural removes)

  1. The act of removing something, especially removing a dish at a meal in order to replace it with the next course
    • Milton
      This place should be at once both school and university, not needing a remove to any other house of scholarship.
    • Goldsmith
      And drags at each remove a lengthening chain.
  2. A dish thus replaced, or the replacement
  3. (UK) (at some public schools) A division of the school, especially the form prior to last
  4. A step or gradation (as in the phrase "at one remove")
    • Addison
      A freeholder is but one remove from a legislator.
  5. Distance in time or space; interval.
    • 2007, James D. McCallister, King's Highway, page 162:
      In his unfortunate absence at this far remove of 2007, Zevon's musicianship and irascible wit are as missed as ever.
  6. (dated) The transfer of one's home or business to another place; a move.
    • J. H. Newman
      It is an English proverb that three removes are as bad as a fire.
  7. The act of resetting a horse's shoe.
    (Can we find and add a quotation of Jonathan Swift to this entry?)

References [edit]

  • OED 2nd edition 1989

Latin [edit]

Verb [edit]

removē

  1. second-person singular present active imperative of removeō

Portuguese [edit]

Verb [edit]

remove

  1. third-person singular present indicative of remover
  2. second-person singular imperative of remover
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