erode
Americanverb (used with object)
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erodes,
present (3rd person singular)
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eroded,
past participle, past
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eroding
present participle
verb (used without object)
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erodes,
present (3rd person singular)
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eroded,
past participle, past
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eroding
present participle
verb
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to grind or wear down or away or become ground or worn down or away
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to deteriorate or cause to deteriorate
jealousy eroded the relationship
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(tr; usually passive) pathol to remove (tissue) by ulceration
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
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erodabilitynoun
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erodibilitynoun
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erodableadjective
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erodentadjective
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erodibleadjective
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erosibleadjective
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nonerodedadjective
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nonerodingadjective
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unerodableadjective
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unerodedadjective
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unerodibleadjective
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unerodingadjective
Inflected Forms
Participles
Conjugated Forms
Present
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erodesimple
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erodessimple
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have erodedperfect
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has erodedperfect
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am erodingprogressive
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are erodingprogressive
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is erodingprogressive
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have been erodingperfect progressive
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has been erodingperfect progressive
Past
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erodedsimple
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had erodedperfect
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was erodingprogressive
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were erodingprogressive
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had been erodingperfect progressive
Future
Etymology
Origin of erode
First recorded in 1605–15; from French ė́roder or directly from Latin ērōdere, equivalent to ē- “out of, from” + rōdere “to gnaw”; see e- 1
Explanation
When soil or land erodes, it wears away or is removed. Many beaches seem to get smaller and smaller, as the endless wash of the waves begins to erode the fine sand. While erode is most commonly used when describing land loss, you can also use it in less literal ways. Numerous hospital bills can cause your savings to erode. Each time you catch your friend in a lie, your trust in her erodes a little more. Consumer confidence is eroding away as the media reports more and more bad economic news. What’s key here is both the sense of loss, as well as the idea that it is a gradual process.
Vocabulary lists containing erode
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Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
See Examples For:
A credit-card bill that could dent banks’ profits and erode Visa’s V 0.81%increase; up pointing triangle and Mastercard’s MA 0.82%increase; up pointing triangle dominance has a new champion, and he sits in the Oval Office.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Oct. 8, 2026
But studies show AI text detectors are often unreliable, generating false positives that can erode trust between instructors and students and forcing teachers to devise innovative methods to detect cheating and evaluate assignments.
From Barron's ● Oct. 6, 2026
Women's Aid chief executive Farah Nazeer meanwhile said the scheme could further erode "incredibly low" trust in the criminal justice system, meaning "even greater numbers of women and children may be left without protection".
From BBC ● Oct. 1, 2026
“Root systems protect Lake Tahoe’s clarity by stabilizing soils that could erode, and uptaking nutrients that would feed algae in the lake,” Cowen wrote in an email.
From Los Angeles Times ● Sep. 19, 2026
Moisture damage caused the tiles on the ceiling to erode or fall off.
From "A Deadly Wandering: A Mystery, a Landmark Investigation, and the Astonishing Science of Attention in the Digital Age" by Matt Richtel
He characterized AI capabilities as statistical computations and warned that assigning consciousness to AI erodes human dignity.
From MarketWatch ● Oct. 2, 2026
She wrote a series of articles about the problem of loneliness among older people, which she described as "a creeping enemy which erodes confidence."
From BBC ● Sep. 30, 2026
“As tides change and sand erodes over time, it is common for military ordnance to reveal itself at this location,” the post stated.
From Los Angeles Times ● Sep. 29, 2026
One is mechanical stress, in which repeated contact with water droplets creates friction that slowly erodes a coating or causes pieces of it to peel away.
From Science Daily ● Sep. 10, 2026
The snow erodes, leaving the potholes in the roads near our house filled with muddy water.
From "Cat's Eye" by Margaret Atwood
Over the last few weeks, California’s coastline has been battered by repeated high-surf events that have eroded beaches and damaged infrastructure.
From Los Angeles Times ● Oct. 14, 2026
Already this year, multiple counties and towns have declared local emergencies as a spell of powerful tropical storms from the Pacific generated high surf that eroded local beaches.
From Los Angeles Times ● Sep. 21, 2026
Further south, at least seven homes in Dana Point were declared uninhabitable after the coast on which they sit rapidly eroded, with one house collapsing into the sea.
From Barron's ● Sep. 11, 2026
A more-prolonged shutdown would have eroded investors’ faith in the markets, officials worried at the time.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Sep. 7, 2026
The region’s transformation from fertile woodland to eroded scrub or desert has been elucidated by paleobotanists and archaeologists.
From "Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies" by Jared M. Diamond
Nomadic life is on the decline, and material gains in the larger cities—with better education and healthcare—are eroding interest in traditional ways.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Oct. 5, 2026
The proposals triggered an outcry across many parts of the criminal justice world, with many opponents saying that eroding the 800-year-old right to trial by jury would not solve the backlogs.
From BBC ● Oct. 4, 2026
Normally, rising energy prices could hurt the consumer by eroding inflation-adjusted earnings, but “what’s swamped that is the wealth effect that is coming from the equity market,” said Pathak.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Sep. 15, 2026
The practice was banned in 2020, but the bare faces that cutting left behind are still collapsing and eroding today, washing sediment down into reservoirs.
From BBC ● Sep. 12, 2026
Lines of old corn stubble planted in some earlier year rode the eroding rises.
From "The Teacher’s Funeral" by Richard Peck
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Get a wordDefinitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
