abrade
Americanverb (used with or without object)
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to wear off or down by scraping or rubbing.
-
to scrape off.
verb
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Participles
Conjugated Forms
Present
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abradesimple
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abradessimple
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have abradedperfect
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has abradedperfect
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am abradingprogressive
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are abradingprogressive
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is abradingprogressive
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have been abradingperfect progressive
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has been abradingperfect progressive
Past
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abradedsimple
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had abradedperfect
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was abradingprogressive
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were abradingprogressive
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had been abradingperfect progressive
Future
Etymology
Origin of abrade
1670–80; < Latin abrādere, equivalent to ab- ab- + rādere to scrape
Explanation
When you abrade something, you scrub it vigorously. To clean your dirty bathtub well, you'll have to abrade it with a scrub brush and powdered bleach. When you scour something so vigorously that you remove dirt, grime, or even the surface of the thing you're scrubbing, you abrade it. You might need to abrade your fingers with a nail brush to get them clean after working on your oily car engine all afternoon. The word abrade is related to abrasion — a scrape on the skin — and both words come from the Latin root abradere, which means "to scrape off."
Vocabulary lists containing abrade
The Alchemist
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Ready Player One
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On the Origin of Species
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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:
Its nine stories concern the complicated Bengali families in India and America, and Lahiri’s elegant, observant prose is constantly alert to the ways that lore and folkways shape or abrade relationships.
From Los Angeles Times ● Apr. 14, 2025
One recent study suggests that many particles enter the water when you repeatedly open or close the cap, and tiny bits abrade.
From Science Daily ● Jan. 8, 2024
With no mangled sheet metal to puncture or abrade tires, there ought to be fewer blowouts.
From Washington Post ● Feb. 19, 2022
Our veneer of civilization would not take all that much to abrade.
From New York Times ● Feb. 3, 2018
Urban life tended to abrade tribal and ethnic distinctions, and instead of being Xhosas, or Sothos, or Zulus, or Shangaans, we were Alexandrians.
From "Long Walk to Freedom" by Nelson Mandela
The artist abrades the surfaces of his paintings, giving them a patina of age that contributes to their folkloric vibe and makes these images even more absorbing.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Feb. 26, 2026
Despite the dirt, the stains and the splitting, there’s little loss of paint — which sometimes abrades with rolling and unrolling.
From Seattle Times ● Sep. 22, 2023
Time is a stream, flowing around us and through us, incising lines on faces as it abrades rocks.
From The Guardian ● Aug. 28, 2010
When tape is removed, it abrades the skin.
From Washington Post
Any mechanism which abrades or wears down a substance.
From Practical Mechanics for Boys by Zerbe, James Slough
Perforated and abraded, the artwork has not been on display since its 1941 acquisition.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Nov. 12, 2025
They abraded the rocks, revealing fresh surfaces that contain distinct rounded carbonate grains, a sign of settling in a lakefront.
From Science Magazine ● Mar. 13, 2024
In other words, they investigated questions such as: What happens when these materials are abraded or burnt?
From Science Daily ● Feb. 22, 2024
When tyres make contact with the road, tiny particles are abraded and emitted.
From Reuters ● May 17, 2023
His voice had the rough, abraded texture of stone against stone.
From "Six of Crows" by Leigh Bardugo
It is only then, once you are still, that a now low, whipping wind, riddled with sand begins pricking and abrading your skin and collecting in the pages of your novel; it is intolerable.
From Salon ● Apr. 25, 2025
On the way up, it will scout the rocks, including abrading more patches to see rock interiors.
From Scientific American ● Jun. 7, 2022
And, beyond that, Dr. Tarly cured greyscale with more abrading than I would have liked.
From The New Yorker ● Apr. 12, 2019
The new album once again features Mr. Modirzadeh and Mr. ElSaffar in the foreground, blending or abrading their timbres in ways that shrug off the Western scale.
From New York Times ● Jul. 23, 2012
Character of the File Tooth.—Files are distinguished principally by the character of the oblique, or cross grooves and ridges which do the cutting and abrading when the file is drawn across the surface.
From Practical Mechanics for Boys by Zerbe, James Slough
Definitions 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.
