expunging
Striking from records
Expunging is the act of erasing or removing something completely, as if it never existed.
Courts expunge criminal records, making them officially invisible.
You might expunge embarrassing photos from social media or try to expunge painful memories.
The word implies thorough elimination rather than mere deletion: She spent years expunging all traces of her former identity.
Destroying beyond recognition
- deletingRemoving from existence
- erasingRemoving recorded marks
- wipingRubbing to clean
- effacingRemoving from view
redacting · scrubbing · removing · purging · expurgating · sanitizing · blotting out · striking out
Nullifying legally
- voidingNullifying or emptying
- invalidatingMaking something null
- cancelingRevoking a prior arrangement
- repealingAbolishing enacted legislation
revoking · abrogating · nullifying · vacating · quashing · sealing · clearing · dismissing
obliterating
Destroying beyond recognition
effacing · redacting · scrubbing · removing · purging · expurgating · sanitizing · blotting out · striking out · crossing out
annulling
Nullifying legally
- voidingNullifying or emptying
- invalidatingMaking something null
- cancelingRevoking a prior arrangement
repealing · revoking · abrogating · nullifying · vacating · quashing · sealing · clearing · dismissing · overturning
- removalremove, elimination, delete, erasing, erase
- deindexingdeindexing, delisting, removal, unlisting, robots.txt
- destructiondestruction, destroying, demolishing, devastation, ruination
expungingpreserving
Protecting from deterioration
archiving · retaining · keeping · conserving · memorializing
pungent, puncture, punctual, poignant, expunge, punctuation, expunged, expunction, expunges