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Erosion
//əˈɹoʊʒən// noun
Definitions
Noun
- 1 The result of having been worn away or eroded, as by a glacier on rock or the sea on a cliff face. uncountable
"Father Ted: The cliffs were gone? How could they just disappear? Dougal: Erosion."
- 2 erosion by chemical action wordnet
- 3 The changing of a surface by mechanical action, friction, thermal expansion contraction, or impact. uncountable
- 4 (geology) the mechanical process of wearing or grinding something down (as by particles washing over it), also figuratively wordnet
- 5 The gradual loss of something as a result of an ongoing process. figuratively, uncountable
"the erosion of a person's trust"
Show 7 more definitions
- 6 a gradual decline of something wordnet
- 7 Destruction by abrasive action of fluids. uncountable
- 8 condition in which the earth's surface is worn away by the action of water and wind wordnet
- 9 One of two fundamental operations in morphological image processing from which all other morphological operations are derived. countable, uncountable
- 10 Loss of tooth enamel due to non-bacteriogenic chemical processes. countable, uncountable
- 11 A shallow ulceration or lesion, usually involving skin or epithelial tissue. countable, uncountable
- 12 In morphology, a basic operation (denoted ⊖); see Erosion (morphology). countable, uncountable
Etymology
From Middle French erosion, from Latin ērōsiō (“eating away”), derived from ērōdō. The first known occurrence in English was in the 1541 translation by Robert Copland of Guy de Chauliac's medical text The Questyonary of Cyrurygens. Copland used erosion to describe how ulcers developed in the mouth. By 1774 erosion was used outside medical subjects. Oliver Goldsmith employed the term in the more contemporary geological context, in his book Natural History, with the quote : "Bounds are thus put to the erosion of the earth by water."
See also for "erosion"
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