efface

American  

[ih-feys] / ɪˈfeɪs /

verb (used with object)

• effaces,
  present (3rd person singular)
• effaced,
  past participle,  past
• effacing
  present participle

1. to wipe out; do away with; expunge.

   to efface one's unhappy memories.

2. to rub out, erase, or obliterate (outlines, traces, inscriptions, etc.).

3. to make (oneself ) inconspicuous; withdraw (oneself ) modestly or shyly.

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efface British  

/ ɪˈfeɪs /

verb

1. to obliterate or make dim

   to efface a memory

2. to make (oneself) inconspicuous or humble through modesty, cowardice, or obsequiousness

3. to rub out (a line, drawing, etc); erase

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Other Word Forms

Derived Forms

• effacement
  noun
• effacer
  noun
• effaceable
  adjective
• uneffaceable
  adjective
• uneffaced
  adjective

Inflected Forms

Participles

• effacing
  present
• effaced
  past

Conjugated Forms

Present

• efface
  simple
• effaces
  simple
• have effaced
  perfect
• has effaced
  perfect
• am effacing
  progressive
• are effacing
  progressive
• is effacing
  progressive
• have been effacing
  perfect progressive
• has been effacing
  perfect progressive

Past

• effaced
  simple
• had effaced
  perfect
• was effacing
  progressive
• were effacing
  progressive
• had been effacing
  perfect progressive

Future

• will efface
  simple
• will have effaced
  perfect
• will be effacing
  progressive
• will have been effacing
  perfect progressive

Etymology

Origin of efface

From the Middle French word effacer, dating back to 1480–90; see ef-, face

Explanation

If something is erased or rubbed out, it has been effaced. Teachers get annoyed to find that someone has effaced the blackboard — even the part clearly marked, "Do Not Erase!" You can also efface things that are not physical — like effacing feelings, impressions, or memories. When you efface a memory, you wipe it out as well. Some people believe that their good deeds are able to efface their past wrongs. They'll have to rely on others' opinions to see how well that works.

Example Sentences

See Examples For:

efface effaces effaced effacing

"You may have the power to bring down the government. But you cannot efface reality," he said.

From BBC ● Sep. 8, 2025

It’s exceedingly unlikely that Leo had anything to do with her murder, but the show doesn’t efface her tragedy, even as it reckons with the gravity of Leo’s.

From Los Angeles Times ● Jun. 20, 2025

Frankly, to efface all cartographic memorials to racism in Alexandria would require changing the name of the city itself.

From Washington Post ● Jan. 17, 2023

Clichés like these efface the complications of real relationships.

From New York Times ● Apr. 21, 2020

It was as though Mona had once been marked, but had since chosen to efface the symbol—or to erase it.

From "Huntress" by Malinda Lo

His celebrated merchant posters, made from local advertisements that he salvages from his neighborhood and then effaces so that multiple layers surface simultaneously, tell a history of predation via something as commonplace as payday-loan advertisements.

From New York Times ● Apr. 19, 2023

Most essentially, “Time Is the Thing a Body Moves Through,” not unlike Fleischmann’s first book “Syzygy, Beauty,” effaces lines of genre as a strategy to efface, or disrupt, lines of self and gender.

From Los Angeles Times ● Jun. 5, 2019

Classical realism is sometimes accused of effacing its own literary labor; the cost of Tokarczuk’s flâneurial freedom is that it effaces the labor of travel.

From The New Yorker ● Sep. 24, 2018

Indeed, each film effaces the collective aspects of the assassination research by presenting the historiographic challenges of the period as essentially the work of one man.

From Slate ● Jul. 21, 2017

Daisy, tempt me not to call you cold and heartless, to say those things which a lifetime vainly repents and never effaces.

From Daisy Burns (Volume 2) by Julia Kavanagh

If anything, I think he speaks to an aspect of Silicon Valley that maybe has been effaced more recently—it’s not our popular image of the industry today, where it’s something much more malign.

From Slate ● Aug. 15, 2025

The Eaton and Palisades fires effaced entire communities, destroyed thousands of homes and left more than two dozen dead.

From Los Angeles Times ● Feb. 6, 2025

In “Oppenheimer,” the writer and director Christopher Nolan’s summer blockbuster biopic — three words that generally don’t go together — the character of Kitty Oppenheimer is effaced twice over.

From New York Times ● Jan. 1, 2024

But that timing dates back to when broadcast television dominated — both in viewership and Emmys contenders — in a way that has been effaced by cable television and streaming services.

From Seattle Times ● Aug. 10, 2023

João de Barros was able to claim in 1555 that Hercules’ pillars, ‘which he set up at our very doorstep, as it were,...have been effaced from human memory and thrust into silence and oblivion’.

From "The Invention of Science" by David Wootton

In “Gatz,” the novel’s narrative texture was conveyed through zany approximation — the troupe finding Fitzgerald not by effacing itself but by embracing its eccentric difference.

From Los Angeles Times ● Apr. 8, 2025

And thus, too, began his lifelong strategy of effacing himself from his work.

From Washington Post ● Sep. 29, 2021

Classical realism is sometimes accused of effacing its own literary labor; the cost of Tokarczuk’s flâneurial freedom is that it effaces the labor of travel.

From The New Yorker ● Sep. 24, 2018

Apart from all this, maybe the most potent force effacing gay culture is an understandable, if still covert, impulse to jettison the trauma of the queer legacy.

From Slate ● Jun. 25, 2018

Then I saw a shadow flit across her face, and she drew back against the wall, effacing herself, as a step sounded outside and Maxim came into the room.

From "Rebecca" by Daphne du Maurier