† 1. a. The action of turning persons out of doors, or expelling them from their country; the fact of being thus expelled. b. Divulgation of secrets (cf. ELIMINATE v. 1 b.). c. (See quot. 1809.)
1601. Bp. Barlow, Defence Prot. Relig., 175. Fabulous eliminations of hels secrets.
1624–47. Bp. Hall, Rem. Wks. (1660), 201. The Jewes … after all their disgracefull eliminations.
1809. Edin. Rev., XIV. April, 20. The process of excluding this proportion [of the French Legislative Assembly] is entitled elimination.
2. gen. Expulsion, casting out, getting rid of anything, whether material or immaterial.
1627. Donne, Serm. (1640), xxii. 221. This difference gives no occasion to an elimination, to an extermination of those Books, which we call Apocryphall.
1833. Sir W. Hamilton, in Edin. Rev., April, 205. An elimination of those less precise and appropriate significations, which [etc.].
1862. H. Spencer, First Princ., I. i. § 1 (1875), 4. The elimination of individual errors of thought.
1878. A. H. Green, Coal, 171. The gradual elimination of the oxygen and the concentration of the carbon still go forward.
1883. H. Drummond, Nat. Law in Spir. W., i. (1884), 28. The elimination of mystery from the universe is the elimination of Religion.
3. Phys. The process of throwing off (effete and waste matter) from the tissues.
1855. Bain, Senses & Int., II. i. § 11 (1864), 94. The elimination of waste matter from the skin is promoted [by exercise].
1877. Rosenthal, Muscles & Nerves, 87. In the death-stiffening this elimination cannot occur.
b. transf. and fig.
1859. Darwin, Orig. Spec., xv. (1873), 405. This elimination of sterility apparently follows from the same cause. Ibid. (1871), Desc. Man, I. v. 172. Some elimination of the worst dispositions is always in progress.
1873. H. Spencer, Study Sociol., xiv. 346. That natural process of elimination by which society continually purifies itself.
4. Algebra. (See ELIMINATE v. 5.)
1845. Penny Cycl., 1st Suppl. I. s.v., As to equations which are not purely algebraical … we cannot … say that there is any organized method of elimination existing, except that of solution.
1881. Burnside & Panton, Theor. Equations, xiii. (1886), § 140. 318. We now proceed to show how the elimination may be performed so as to obtain the quantity R.
¶ 5. catachr. The process of selecting and abstracting some special element; also, the process of disentangling an essential fact or principle from a mass of confused details. Cf. ELIMINATE 6.
1869. G. C. Wallich, in Sci. Opin., 10 Feb., 271/2. The elimination from the surrounding waters of the elements entering into the composition of body-substance.
1850. Maurice, Mor. & Met. Philos. (ed. 2), I. 159. He [Plato] was not able to apply his dialectic to the elimination of this idea from the names or facts in which it was imbedded.
1854. Faraday, in Lect. on Educ., 68. [Hypotheses] of the utmost value in the elimination of truth.
