eliminate
Americanverb (used with object)
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to remove or get rid of, especially as being in some way undesirable.
to eliminate risks; to eliminate hunger.
- Synonyms:
- annihilate, exterminate, erase, eradicate, abolish, banish
-
to omit, especially as being unimportant or irrelevant; leave out.
I have eliminated all statistical tables, which are of interest only to the specialist.
- Antonyms:
- incorporate, admit, accept, include
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to remove from further consideration or competition, especially by defeating in a contest.
-
to eradicate or kill.
to eliminate the enemy.
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Physiology. to void or expel from an organism.
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Mathematics. to remove (a quantity) from an equation by elimination.
verb
-
to remove or take out; get rid of
-
to reject as trivial or irrelevant; omit from consideration
-
to remove (a competitor, team, etc) from a contest, usually by defeat
-
slang to murder in a cold-blooded manner
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physiol to expel (waste matter) from the body
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maths to remove (an unknown variable) from two or more simultaneous equations
Usage
Eliminate is sometimes wrongly used to talk about avoiding the repetition of something undesirable: we must prevent (not eliminate ) further mistakes of this kind
Other Word Forms
- eliminability noun
- eliminable adjective
- eliminant noun
- eliminative adjective
- eliminator noun
- noneliminative adjective
- preeliminate verb (used with object)
- uneliminated adjective
- well-eliminated adjective
Etymology
Origin of eliminate
First recorded in 1560–70 and in 1915–20 eliminate for def. 4; from Latin ēlīminātus “turned out of doors” (past participle of ēlīmināre ), equivalent to ē- “from, out of” + līmin-, stem of līmen “threshold” + -ātus adjective suffix; e- 1, -ate 1
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.
A year ago, Lee was pledging to eliminate the low valuation multiples attached to Korean stocks owing to decades of mistreatment of minority shareholders by the dominant chaebols.
From MarketWatch
Before this season, their best result was beating Lazio on penalties in the quarter-finals of the Europa League before being eliminated by Tottenham Hotspur.
From Barron's
In the discussion that followed, he dismissed the idea that technological change inevitably leaves workers worse off, citing past waves of innovation that reshaped jobs rather than eliminated them.
From Barron's
As Milton Friedman explained in 1967, “a system of floating exchange rates completely eliminates the balance-of-payments problem.”
They hold up as an example how credit-card companies may be disintermediated and see margins contract, but merchants and consumers would benefit by this process of eliminating the middleman, allowing economic activity to actually increase.
From MarketWatch
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.
