Definitions

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

  • transitive verb To cancel, strike out, or make impossible to be perceived.
  • transitive verb To remove from a document or record: synonym: erase.
  • transitive verb To remove (a file, for example) from a hard drive or other storage medium.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • To blot out; expunge; erase.

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

  • transitive verb To blot out; to erase; to expunge; to dele; to omit.

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

  • noun Alternative spelling of Delete.
  • verb To remove, get rid of or erase, especially written or printed material, or data on a computer.
  • verb computing To hide, conceal

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • verb cut or eliminate
  • verb remove or make invisible
  • verb wipe out digitally or magnetically recorded information

Etymologies

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

[Latin dēlēre, dēlēt-, to wipe out.]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From Latin deletus, past participle of delere ("destroy, blot out, efface"), from delevi, originally perf. tense of delinere ("to daub, erase by smudging"), from de- ("from, away") + linere ("to smear, wipe").

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