v. Also (5 irrase, 7 ereaze), 7–8 erace, -aze. [f. L. ērās- ppl. stem of ērādĕre, f. ē out + rādĕre to scrape, scratch. (In some early examples perh. a variant of ARACE to uproot.)]
1. trans. To scrape or rub out (anything written, engraved, etc.); to efface, expunge, obliterate.
1605. Camden, Rem. (1637), 154. The names of them which for capital crimes against Majestie, were ereazed out of the publick Records.
1632. G. Fletcher, Christ’s Vict., I. vii. Lest it should quite erace That from the world, which was the first world’s grace.
1762–71. H. Walpole, Vertue’s Anecd. Paint. (1786), V. 130. Lombart afterwards erased the face, and inserted that of Cromwell.
1778. Bp. Lowth, Isa., Notes (ed. 12), 340. A letter is erased at the end of the word.
1826. Scott, Woodst., i. Erasing, as far as they could be erased, all traces of its ancient fame.
1858. Greener, Gunnery, 248. Every person fraudulently erasing … from any barrel, any mark.
1863. H. Cox, Instit., I. vi. 57. James I. … erased from the journals of the House of Commons an obnoxious protestation.
transf. 1860. Tyndall, Glac., I. xxvii. 198. The snow had practically erased it [the road].
¶ In quasi-passive use.
1837. Carlyle, Fr. Rev., III. I. vi. Things, which lie very black in our Earth’s Annals, yet which will not erase therefrom.
2. fig. To efface, obliterate from the mind or memory.
1695. Ld. Preston, Boeth., I. 37. My Griefs have dulled my Memory, and eras’d almost every thing out of it.
1792. S. Rogers, Pleas. Mem., I. 275. Though the iron school of War erase Each milder virtue.
1856. Sir B. Brodie, Psychol. Inq., I. ii. 58. The effect of a blow on the head has been … to erase from the memory the events which immediately preceded the accident.
a. 1862. Buckle, Civiliz. (1869), III. v. 318. Erasing from his view of human nature those premisses which he had already handled.
3. transf. To destroy utterly. rare.
1728. R. Morris, Ess. Anc. Archit., 9. He … left it quite ruin’d and eras’d.
1855. Singleton, Virgil, I. 376. I have not with the Greeks at Aulis sworn To erase the Trojan nation.
