removal
Pluralremovals
- 1The act of taking something away, or the fact of something being taken away.
The removal of the tumor required a delicate, hours-long operation.
Snow removal kept the city crews busy throughout the night.
Similarelimination, extraction, excision, clearance
Note
The general noun the other senses build on, formed from remove with the suffix -al. It works as a mass noun for an activity (graffiti removal, snow removal) and as a countable noun for each separate instance. The plural removals can therefore be counted, whether they are pear trees grubbed up in Tasmania or the individual cases handled by an immigration agency's "enforcement and removal operations."
- 2The act of dismissing a person from an official post or position of authority.
The board voted for the removal of the chief executive after the scandal.
His removal from the committee followed months of complaints.
Similardismissal, ouster, expulsion
Oppositeappointment, reinstatement
- 3The relocation of a business or household from one set of premises to another.
The firm's removal to larger premises was completed over the holiday weekend.
Their removal to the coast meant a longer commute for everyone.
Similarrelocation, move, transfer
- 4An evening funeral rite in which the coffin is taken, usually from a funeral home, to the church for the next day's mass.
The removal took place on Thursday evening, with the funeral mass the following morning.
Family and friends gathered at the funeral home for the removal to St. Mary's.
Note
Irish English gives the word a fixed place in the days of mourning, on the evening before the funeral mass. Outside Ireland a reader will think first of moving to new premises or of simply taking something away, so the religious occasion can go unrecognized. In Ireland it is used both for one family's evening and for the custom in general.
- 5In criminal slang, the murder of a person; the deliberate killing of someone treated as a threat or obstacle.
The boss arranged the removal of his rival in a downtown parking garage.
Police suspected the removal had been ordered from inside the prison.
Similarmurder, killing, elimination, assassination, hit
Note
Criminal slang that names a killing only by its result: someone is no longer there. The euphemism borrows the businesslike flatness of ordinary taking away, and that is why it chills. It is also why it needs a clear setting. In neutral talk listeners hear the everyday meaning first, so the slang works only where the subject is already a rival, an informant or an obstacle being disposed of.
Practice
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Origin
Formed from the verb "remove" combined with the suffix "-al".