Ablational

Part of speech: adjective

Definitions

1. Connected to the method of removing substance from a surface through various means, including physical forces and environmental conditions
2. Pertaining to the process involving the elimination of layers from a surface by mechanical or chemical forces
3. Describing an action or effect that causes substances to be worn away or stripped off from a material

Etymology: Ablation traces back to Latin "ablatio," a noun from "auferre," meaning "to carry away," built from "ab" ("away from") and "latus," the past participle of "ferre" ("to carry"). The sense of removing material is the original one: a thing is carried away from where it sits. English took the noun "ablation" and gave it a specialised life in medicine, geology and space engineering, where it describes material worn or burned off a surface. The adjective "ablational" is a simple formation: the noun "ablation" with the suffix "-al," which turns a noun into an adjective meaning "relating to" or "of the nature of." It therefore names anything that belongs to the process of ablation, such as an ablational layer on a heat shield or a glacier surface losing ice to melt and sublimation.