Verb

(label) To obscure.

* {{quote-book, year=1892, author=(James Yoxall)

, chapter=5, title= The Lonely Pyramid , passage=The desert storm was riding in its strength; the travellers lay beneath the mastery of the fell simoom.

(label) To make indecipherable; to obliterate.

* 1886 , (Robert Louis Stevenson), (Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde)

From the time he had left the house in Soho on the morning of the murder, he was simply blotted out ; and gradually, as time drew on, Mr. Utterson began to recover from the hotness of his alarm, and to grow more at quiet with himself.

(label) To annihilate

* (w) 7.4

And every living substance that I have made will I blot out from off the face of the earth.

Verb

(effac)

To erase (as anything impressed or inscribed upon a surface); to render illegible or indiscernible.

Do not efface what I've written on the chalkboard.

* 1825 , , The Talisman , A.L. Burt Company (1832?), 15:

An outline of the same device might be traced on his shield, though many a blow had almost effaced the painting.

To cause to disappear as if by rubbing out]] or [[strike out, striking out.

Some people like to efface their own memories with alcohol.

(reflexive) To make oneself inobtrusive as if due to modesty or diffidence.

Many people seem shy, but they really just efface for meekness.

(medicine) Of the cervix during pregnancy, to thin and stretch in preparation for labor.

Some females efface 75% by the 39th week of pregnancy.