Arace

Part of speech: verb

Definitions

1. Archaic verb meaning to pull something up from its roots or to wipe it out entirely
2. An obsolete term for uprooting something violently or removing every trace of it
3. Old-fashioned verb describing the forcible tearing away of something from its base

Etymology: "Arace" is an uncommon English verb meaning to pull up by the roots, and its path into English runs through a Latin word for uprooting. The Latin "eradicare" combined "e-" (out of) with "radix," meaning root, so it literally meant to pull out by the root. That Latin verb passed into Old French as "arachier" or "esracier," the ancestor of modern French "arracher," meaning to tear or pull away. Middle English then borrowed the Old French form as "aracen" or "arasen," and English speakers kept the literal sense of tearing something out from its foundation. The word's opening vowel is a little puzzling. The a- may come from the Latin prefix "ab" (away from), which would have reinforced the sense of removal, though the source treats this as a possibility rather than a settled fact. The same Latin root gave English the more familiar "eradicate," which is a doublet of "arace": two words from one source that entered English by different routes and took on different shapes.

Synonyms: uproot, extirpate, eradicate