Library / English Dictionary

EFFACE

Pronunciation (US):

(GB):

 I. (verb) 

Sense 1

Meaning:

Remove completely from recognition or memory

Example:

efface the memory of the time in the camps

Synonyms:

efface; obliterate

Classified under:

Verbs of size, temperature change, intensifying, etc.

Hypernyms (to "efface" is one way to...):

blur; dim; slur (become vague or indistinct)

Verb group:

blot out; hide; obliterate; obscure; veil (make undecipherable or imperceptible by obscuring or concealing)

Sentence frame:

Somebody ----s something

Sense 2

Meaning:

Remove by or as if by rubbing or erasing

Example:

Please erase the formula on the blackboard--it is wrong!

Synonyms:

efface; erase; rub out; score out; wipe off

Classified under:

Verbs of touching, hitting, tying, digging

Hypernyms (to "efface" is one way to...):

cancel; delete (remove or make invisible)

"Efface" entails doing...:

rub (move over something with pressure)

Troponyms (each of the following is one way to "efface"):

sponge (erase with a sponge; as of words on a blackboard)

cut out; scratch out (strike or cancel by or as if by rubbing or crossing out)

Sentence frames:

Somebody ----s something
Something ----s something

Sense 3

Meaning:

Make inconspicuous

Example:

efface oneself

Classified under:

Verbs of feeling

Hypernyms (to "efface" is one way to...):

humble (cause to be unpretentious)

Sentence frame:

Somebody ----s somebody

Derivation:

effacement (withdrawing into the background; making yourself inconspicuous)

Credits

 Context examples: 

Feeling that the neighbors were interested in her movements, she wished to efface the memory of yesterday's failure by a grand success today, so she ordered the 'cherry bounce', and drove away in state to meet and escort her guests to the banquet.

(Little Women, by Louisa May Alcott)

You see, I am willing to admit, for the sake of the argument, that matter exists; and what I am about to do is to efface you by your own argument.

(Martin Eden, by Jack London)

But joy soon effaced every other feeling; and loud as the wind blew, near and deep as the thunder crashed, fierce and frequent as the lightning gleamed, cataract-like as the rain fell during a storm of two hours' duration, I experienced no fear and little awe.

(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)

Miss Gryce snored at last; she was a heavy Welshwoman, and till now her habitual nasal strains had never been regarded by me in any other light than as a nuisance; to-night I hailed the first deep notes with satisfaction; I was debarrassed of interruption; my half-effaced thought instantly revived.

(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)

When Mrs. Fairfax had bidden me a kind good-night, and I had fastened my door, gazed leisurely round, and in some measure effaced the eerie impression made by that wide hall, that dark and spacious staircase, and that long, cold gallery, by the livelier aspect of my little room, I remembered that, after a day of bodily fatigue and mental anxiety, I was now at last in safe haven.

(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)

The furniture once appropriated to the lower apartments had from time to time been removed here, as fashions changed: and the imperfect light entering by their narrow casement showed bedsteads of a hundred years old; chests in oak or walnut, looking, with their strange carvings of palm branches and cherubs' heads, like types of the Hebrew ark; rows of venerable chairs, high-backed and narrow; stools still more antiquated, on whose cushioned tops were yet apparent traces of half-effaced embroideries, wrought by fingers that for two generations had been coffin-dust.

(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)

A rude noise broke on these fine ripplings and whisperings, at once so far away and so clear: a positive tramp, tramp, a metallic clatter, which effaced the soft wave-wanderings; as, in a picture, the solid mass of a crag, or the rough boles of a great oak, drawn in dark and strong on the foreground, efface the aerial distance of azure hill, sunny horizon, and blended clouds where tint melts into tint.

(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)