delete

verb de·lete \ di-ˈlēt , dē- \

Updated on: 17 Apr 2018

Definition of delete

deleted; deleting

transitive verb

: to eliminate especially by blotting out, cutting out, or erasing

delete a passage in a manuscript

delete a computer file

The e-mail was accidentally deleted.

—

deletable

play \di-ˈlē-tə-bəl, dē-\ adjective

- an easily deletable photo

See delete defined for English-language learners

See delete defined for kids

Examples of delete in a Sentence

Delete this name from the list.
When the movie was shown on TV all the swearwords had been deleted.

Recent Examples of delete from the Web

Most basic information, like my birthday, could not be deleted.

— author: brian x. chen, Anchorage Daily News, "I downloaded the information Facebook has on me. Yikes.," 12 Apr. 2018
Nobody has ever seen -- 33,000 emails are deleted after getting a subpoena for Congress, and nobody bothers looking at that.

— aaron blake, Washington Post, "Trump’s tirade after the Michael Cohen raid, annotated," 9 Apr. 2018
The company is said to have retained private data from 87 million Facebook users despite having assured Facebook that the data was deleted.

— cyrus farivar, Ars Technica, "Steve Wozniak drops Facebook: “The profits are all based on the user’s info”," 9 Apr. 2018
Von Storch posted the content of her tweet on Facebook, and that post was deleted, too.

— sara miller llana, The Christian Science Monitor, "Is Germany’s bold new law a way to clean up the internet or is it stifling free expression?," 8 Apr. 2018
The reason given to the writers whose work was deleted was that the company’s new focus was Preet.

— danielle tcholakian, Longreads, "Digital Media and the Case of the Missing Archives," 6 Apr. 2018
However, most of the pictures were quickly deleted without comment.

— mackenzie cummings-grady, Billboard, "Tool Share Studio Photos Hinting at New Music, Then Immediately Delete Them," 3 Apr. 2018
Instead, not all data was deleted, Facebook acknowledged in a March 17 blog post.

— todd shields, Bloomberg.com, "Facebook Could Be Fined Millions for Violating Consent Deal," 29 Mar. 2018
The Facebook live video, which showed Kim speaking at a rally in West Portal to oppose Wiener’s bill, reportedly had drawn at least 33 comments — roughly half positive and half negative — by the time it was deleted at 2 p.m. Thursday.

— rachel swan, San Francisco Chronicle, "SF mayoral candidate Kim draws heat after posts vanish from Facebook page," 20 Mar. 2018

These example sentences are selected automatically from various online news sources to reflect current usage of the word 'delete.' Views expressed in the examples do not represent the opinion of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback.

Origin and Etymology of delete

Latin deletus, past participle of delēre to wipe out, destroy

NEW! Time Traveler

First Known Use: circa 1605

See Words from the same year

delete Synonyms

Synonyms

blue-pencil, cancel, cross (out), dele, edit (out), elide, kill, scratch (out), strike (out), stroke (out), x (out);

Near Antonyms

stet;

bleep, blip, clip, cut, excise, remove;

bowdlerize, censor, clean (up), expurgate, launder, redact, red-pencil;

abbreviate, crop, shorten;

black out, repress, silence, suppress;

DELETE Defined for English Language Learners

delete

verb

Definition of delete for English Language Learners

: to remove (something, such as words, pictures, or computer files) from a document, recording, computer, etc.

DELETE Defined for Kids

delete

verb de·lete \ di-ˈlēt \

Definition of delete for Students

deleted; deleting

: to take out especially by erasing, crossing out, or cutting

delete a sentence

delete a computer file

Learn More about delete

See words that rhyme with delete Thesaurus: All synonyms and antonyms for delete Spanish Central: Translation of delete Nglish: Translation of delete for Spanish speakers Britannica English: Translation of delete for Arabic speakers

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delete

Definition of delete

deletable

Examples of delete in a Sentence

Recent Examples of delete from the Web

Origin and Etymology of delete

delete Synonyms

Synonyms

Near Antonyms

Related Words

DELETE Defined for English Language Learners

delete

Definition of delete for English Language Learners

DELETE Defined for Kids

delete

Definition of delete for Students

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