# delete

Pronunciation: say "di-LEET" /dɪˈliːt/

## Verb

1. To remove or erase something, especially written material or data stored on a computer or other device.
   - Simple: To remove or erase something, like words on a page or files on a computer.
   - _The editor deleted three paragraphs from the article._
   - _You can delete any file you no longer need._
4. To kill or murder someone. *(slang)*
   - Simple: To kill someone.
   - _The hitman was paid to delete a business rival._
   - _Rumor spread that the cartel had deleted the informant._
5. To defeat or completely dominate an opponent. *(slang)*
   - Simple: To beat someone very easily in a game.
   - _The champion deleted his rival in three straight games._
   - _With one perfect combo, you can delete the enemy team._

## Noun

2. An act of removing or erasing data or written material; a single deletion.
   - Simple: A single act of removing or erasing something.
   - _Each delete in the manuscript was logged for later review._
   - _The software records every delete a user performs._
3. Alternative letter-case form of Delete.
   - Simple: Alternative letter-case form of Delete. It refers to the same keyboard key, just written in lowercase.
   - _Tapping delete clears the character to the right of the cursor._
   - _She pressed delete and the highlighted file disappeared._
6. A control character, encoded as U+007F, originally used to mark a character for removal.
   - Simple: A special computer character, written as code 7F, that stands for a removed letter.
   - _The parser ignored every delete it encountered in the byte stream._
   - _A single delete at code point 127 marked the preceding character as void._
7. A copy of a music or video release that has been withdrawn from the catalog and sold off as surplus.
   - Simple: A music or movie copy that is no longer made and is sold off cheaply.
   - _Collectors hunt through delete bins for rare pressings._
   - _The label dumped thousands of unsold copies as deletes._

## Origin

From Latin dēlētus, the past participle of dēlēre ("destroy, blot out, efface"), from dē- ("from, away") plus linere ("to smear, wipe"). The original sense first appears around 1495, and the computing sense appears around 1977. It is not related to deleterious.

Source: DictionaryAI, https://dictionaryai.com/define/delete (written from Wiktionary data, CC BY-SA 4.0: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/).