Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • noun A sign indicating that something is to be removed from printed or written matter.
  • transitive verb To remove, especially from printed or written matter; delete.
  • transitive verb To mark with a sign indicating deletion.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • A Middle English form of deal.
  • noun An obsolete form of dell.
  • Take out; remove: a word used in proof-reading as a direction to printers to remove a superfluous letter or word, and usually expressed by its initial letter in the distinctive script form , or some variation of it.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • (Print.) Erase; remove; -- a direction to cancel something which has been put in type; usually expressed by a peculiar form of d, thus: �.
  • transitive verb (Print.) To erase; to cancel; to delete; to mark for omission.
  • transitive verb obsolete To deal; to divide; to distribute.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • verb printing to delete
  • noun printing a sign signifying deletion

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[Latin dēlē, second person sing. imperative of dēlēre, to delete.]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From Latin dēlē, second person singular imperative of dēleo ("delete").

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