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Sunday August 8, 2004

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efface \ih-FAYS\ , transitive verb:
1. To cause to disappear by rubbing out, striking out, etc.; to erase; to render illegible or indiscernible.
2. To destroy, as a mental impression; to wipe out; to eliminate completely.
3. To make (oneself) inconspicuous.

Her fingerprints were gone, she thought. Effaced.
-- Rosellen Brown, Half a Heart

Death, so omnipresent in the past that it was familiar, would be effaced, would disappear.
-- Philippe Aries, Western Attitudes Toward Death from the Middle Ages to the Present

Conversely, as a reaction, one may note in passing that more serious and dedicated writers choose to keep a low profile and to disguise or to efface themselves as much as possible.
-- Sergio Perosa, "The Heirs of Calvino and the Eco Effect", New York Times, August 16, 1987

Efface comes from French effacer, from Old French esfacier, from es-, "out" (from Latin ex-) + face, "face" (from Latin facies).

Dictionary.com Entry and Pronunciation for efface

 

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