efface
Americanverb (used with object)
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effaces,
present (3rd person singular)
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effaced,
past participle, past
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effacing
present participle
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to wipe out; do away with; expunge.
to efface one's unhappy memories.
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to rub out, erase, or obliterate (outlines, traces, inscriptions, etc.).
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to make (oneself ) inconspicuous; withdraw (oneself ) modestly or shyly.
verb
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to obliterate or make dim
to efface a memory
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to make (oneself) inconspicuous or humble through modesty, cowardice, or obsequiousness
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to rub out (a line, drawing, etc); erase
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Participles
Conjugated Forms
Present
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effacesimple
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effacessimple
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have effacedperfect
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has effacedperfect
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am effacingprogressive
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are effacingprogressive
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is effacingprogressive
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have been effacingperfect progressive
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has been effacingperfect progressive
Past
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effacedsimple
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had effacedperfect
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was effacingprogressive
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were effacingprogressive
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had been effacingperfect progressive
Future
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.
Vocabulary lists containing efface
100 SAT Words Beginning with "E"
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Unit 1: Telling Details
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"An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge" by Ambrose Bierce
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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:
"You may have the power to bring down the government. But you cannot efface reality," he said.
From BBC ● Sep. 8, 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
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
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
In a compassionate but nuanced telling, the novel effectively effaces assumptions of superiority and inferiority, good and bad.
From New York Times ● Aug. 5, 2021
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
Its general application "imparts a uniform tint to all buildings, fills up the architectural lines, effaces all their delicate ornamentation, and does not allow you to read their age."
From Southern Spain by A. F. (Albert Frederick) Calvert
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
Although written in fire and effaced in ash, these deaths all become recognizable as messages of protest, refusal and resistance in reference to Bouazizi’s act.
From Salon ● May 4, 2024
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
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
These animals, the creation of inspired puppet designer Nick Barnes and Finn Caldwell, are fluidly deployed by a team of graceful puppeteers, who preserve the essential dignity of these creatures without effacing their ferocity.
From Los Angeles Times ● May 9, 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
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.
