Effaces

Part of speech: verb

Definitions

1. To entirely clear away or destroy the presence of something
2. To wipe out or obscure marks or signs from a surface
3. To eliminate visible evidence by rubbing or scraping off

Etymology: "Effaces" is the third-person singular form of "efface", so it is the present tense of the verb, and the verb's own history is what matters here. It comes from Middle French "effacer", meaning "erase", which in turn descends from Old French "esfacier", whose literal sense was "remove the face". The image is concrete: to efface something was to take away its face, its surface, the visible features that made it what it was. The surface-based sense has stayed close to the original idea. A marking on a page or a stone is effaced when its outline is rubbed or worn away until the thing itself can no longer be seen. The word later spread to abstract matters, so that a memory, an identity or a person's presence can be effaced in the same way, by being gradually erased from view.

Synonyms: erases, obliterates, removes, wipes out, destroys

Antonyms: preserves, maintains, sustains, protects, safeguards