Expunge

//ɪkˈspʌnd͡ʒ// verb

verb ·Moderate ·College level

Definitions

Verb
  1. 1
    To erase or strike out. transitive

    "The gentleman from Texas [Mr. CRAIN] asks unanimous consent to expunge from the RECORD and from the Journal the motion to excuse the gentleman from Mississippi [Mr. ALLEN] […]"

  2. 2
    remove by erasing or crossing out or as if by drawing a line wordnet
  3. 3
    To eliminate completely; to annihilate. transitive
  4. 4
    To delete permanently (e-mail etc.) that was previously marked for deletion but still stored. transitive

Synonyms

All synonyms
strikeabbreviateabolishabridgeannihilateannul

Example

More examples

"The gentleman from Texas [Mr. CRAIN] asks unanimous consent to expunge from the RECORD and from the Journal the motion to excuse the gentleman from Mississippi [Mr. ALLEN] […]"

Etymology

Learned borrowing from Latin expungere.

Related phrases

strike out

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Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.