# eliminate

Pronunciation: US/UK say "i-LIM-i-nayt" /ɪˈlɪm.ɪ.neɪt/; AUS say "uh-LIM-i-nayt" /əˈlɪm.ɪ.næɪt/

## Verb

1. To completely remove something or get rid of it, putting an end to it.
   - Simple: To get rid of something completely so that it is no longer there.
   - _The company hopes to eliminate paper waste by switching to digital records._
   - _Regular exercise helped eliminate her back pain over several months._
2. To remove someone from further competition, or to rule out a person or possibility during an investigation.
   - Simple: To remove a team or person from a competition, or to rule out an idea or suspect.
   - _A single loss can eliminate a team from the tournament._
   - _Investigators eliminated several theories before settling on the most likely cause._
3. To kill a person or animal, often deliberately and as part of a plan. *(slang)*
   - Simple: To kill a person or animal, especially in a planned or secret way.
   - _The spy was ordered to eliminate the double agent before dawn._
   - _Ranchers hired a marksman to eliminate the wolf threatening their herd._
4. To destroy a facility and make it unusable, or to disable a soldier so they can no longer fight, not always by killing.
   - Simple: To destroy a building or piece of equipment, or to stop a soldier from being able to fight.
   - _The squadron was tasked to eliminate the radar station before the main assault._
   - _Snipers worked to eliminate enemy officers and weaken the chain of command._
5. To remove waste products from the body by excreting them.
   - Simple: To get rid of waste from the body, such as through urine or sweat.
   - _The liver breaks down drugs so the body can eliminate them safely._
   - _Healthy kidneys eliminate excess salt and water from the bloodstream._
6. To record entries in a consolidation statement that cancel out the effects of transactions between companies in the same group.
   - Simple: To cancel out money that companies in the same group owe each other when their accounts are combined.
   - _The group accountant must eliminate intercompany profits before preparing the consolidated balance sheet._
   - _When the parent and subsidiary trade with each other, the bookkeeper eliminates those amounts in the combined statement._

## Origin

Borrowed from Latin ēlīminātus, the participle of ēlīminō ("to turn out of doors, banish"), formed from ē- plus līmen ("a threshold"). It is related to Latin līmes ("a boundary") and to English limit and limen.

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