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Erase vs Deface - What's the difference?

erase | deface |

As verbs the difference between erase and deface

is that erase is to remove markings or information while deface is to damage something, especially a surface, in a visible or conspicuous manner.

erase

English

Verb

(eras)
  • to remove markings or information
  • I erased that note because it was wrong.
  • To obliterate information from (a storage medium), such as to clear or (with magnetic storage) to demagnetize.
  • I'm going to erase this tape.
  • To obliterate (information) from a storage medium, such as to clear or to overwrite.
  • I'm going to erase those files.
  • (baseball) To remove a runner from the bases via a double play or pick off play
  • Jones was erased by a 6-4-3 double play.
  • To be erased .
  • The chalkboard erased easily.
    Her painful memories seemingly erased completely.
    The files will erase quickly.
  • To disregard (a group, an orientation, etc.); to prevent from having an active role in society.
  • * 1998 , Janice Lynn Ristock, ?Catherine Taylor, Inside the academy and out
  • I suggest, then, that counterdiscourses, when reductive, tend to emulate the screen discourse that erases gay sociality.
  • * 2004 , Daniel Lefkowitz, Words and Stones (page 209)
  • As a result, Palestinians are hyperpresent in Israeli media, while Mizrahim are erased from public discourse.
  • * 2011 , Qwo-Li Driskill, Queer Indigenous Studies (page 40)
  • Silence around Native sexuality benefits the colonizers and erases queer Native people from their communities.

    Derived terms

    * eraser * unerase * erasable * unerasable

    Antonyms

    * (remove markings or information) record

    Anagrams

    * English ergative verbs ----

    deface

    English

    Verb

    (defac)
  • To damage something, especially a surface, in a visible or conspicuous manner.
  • * 1869:
  • That wondrous frame where melody began / Lay as a tomb defaced that no eye cared to scan.
  • To void or devalue; to nullify or degrade the face value.
  • He defaced the I.O.U. notes by scrawling "void" over them.
  • * 1776:
  • One-and-twenty worn and defaced' shillings, however, were considered as equivalent to a guinea, which perhaps, indeed, was worn and ' defaced too, but seldom so much so.
  • (heraldry, flags) To alter a coat of arms or a flag by adding an element to it.
  • You get the Finnish state flag by defacing the national flag with the state coat of arms placed in the middle of the cross.

    Synonyms

    * (damage in a conspicuous way ): disfigure, mar, obliterate, scar, vandalize * (degrade the face value ): cancel, devalue, nullify, void

    Derived terms

    * defacement

    See also

    * efface