efface
Appearance
See also: effacé
English
[edit]Etymology
[edit]From Middle French effacer (“erase”), from Old French esfacier (“remove the face”).
Pronunciation
[edit]- IPA(key): /əˈfeɪs/, /ɪˈfeɪs/
Audio (Southern England): (file) Audio (Southern England): (file) - Rhymes: -eɪs
Verb
[edit]efface (third-person singular simple present effaces, present participle effacing, simple past and past participle effaced)
- (transitive) To erase (as anything impressed or inscribed upon a surface); to render illegible or indiscernible.
- Do not efface what I've written on the chalkboard.
- 1825, Walter Scott, The Talisman, A.L. Burt Company (1832?), 15:
- An outline of the same device might be traced on his shield, though many a blow had almost effaced the painting.
- (transitive) To cause to disappear as if by rubbing out or striking out.
- Some people like to efface their own memories with alcohol.
- 1834, L[etitia] E[lizabeth] L[andon], chapter XXXI, in Francesca Carrara. […], volume III, London: Richard Bentley, […], (successor to Henry Colburn), →OCLC, page 254:
- The bright records of the last hour effaced all the darker traces left by long and weary days.
- (intransitive) To make oneself inobtrusive as if due to modesty or diffidence.
- Many people seem shy, but they really just efface for meekness.
- (medicine, intransitive) Of the cervix during pregnancy, to thin and stretch in preparation for labor.
- Some females efface 75% by the 39th week of pregnancy.
Derived terms
[edit]Translations
[edit]to erase
|
cause to disappear as if by rubbing out
make oneself inobtrusive
|
See also
[edit]Anagrams
[edit]French
[edit]Pronunciation
[edit]Noun
[edit]efface f (plural effaces)
- (North America) eraser
- Synonym: gomme
Verb
[edit]efface
- inflection of effacer:
Further reading
[edit]- “efface”, in Trésor de la langue française informatisé [Digitized Treasury of the French Language], 2012.
Categories:
- English terms derived from Middle French
- English terms derived from Old French
- English terms derived from Proto-Indo-European
- English terms derived from the Proto-Indo-European root *dʰeh₁-
- English 2-syllable words
- English terms with IPA pronunciation
- English terms with audio pronunciation
- Rhymes:English/eɪs
- Rhymes:English/eɪs/2 syllables
- English lemmas
- English verbs
- English transitive verbs
- English terms with usage examples
- English terms with quotations
- English intransitive verbs
- en:Medicine
- French 2-syllable words
- French terms with IPA pronunciation
- French terms with audio pronunciation
- French lemmas
- French nouns
- French countable nouns
- French feminine nouns
- North American French
- French non-lemma forms
- French verb forms