Eliminates

Part of speech: verb

Definitions

1. Removes or gets rid of something entirely, often removing problems or obstacles ; kills or destroys a living being or thing, often to stop it from causing harm or existing
2. Eradicates or excludes something so that it no longer exists or affects a situation ; brings about the death or destruction of a person, animal, or entity
3. Completely removes or obliterates an object, condition, or difficulty ; terminates or puts an end to a living organism or thing through destruction or killing

Etymology: "Eliminates" is the third-person singular form of "eliminate," so its history is that of the verb itself. The surprising thing is how literal the original sense was: the Latin "ēlīminō" meant "to turn out of doors" or "to banish," so to eliminate someone was first to push them across a threshold and out of the house. The Latin root is "līmen," meaning "threshold," which is closely related to "līmes," a boundary, and it is the same ancestor that gave English "limit" and "limen" (the threshold of perception). The prefix "ē-" means "out of," so the whole word is built from the idea of stepping over a doorway to the outside. The verb is a borrowing from Latin, and the word moved from the sense of expelling a person to the more abstract sense of removing something unwanted from a calculation or situation.

Synonyms: removes, eradicates, excludes, dismisses, obliterates

Antonyms: includes, retains, accepts, maintains, keeps