erosion

Meaning

1. (uncountable) The result of having been worn away or eroded, as by a glacier on rock or the sea on a cliff face.
2. (uncountable) The changing of a surface by mechanical action, friction, thermal expansion contraction, or impact.
3. (figuratively, uncountable) The gradual loss of something as a result of an ongoing process.
4. (uncountable) Destruction by abrasive action of fluids.
5. (countable, uncountable) One of two fundamental operations in morphological image processing from which all other morphological operations are derived.
6. (countable, uncountable) Loss of tooth enamel due to non-bacteriogenic chemical processes.
7. (countable, uncountable) A shallow ulceration or lesion, usually involving skin or epithelial tissue.
8. (countable, uncountable) In morphology, a basic operation (denoted ⊖); see Erosion (morphology).

Synonyms

corrosion

eating away

wearing away

eroding

encroachment

abrasion

washout

degradation

washing away

corroding

scouring

wearing

washing

expending

fester

flushing

fretting

gnaw

gums

infringement

landslide

resorption

rinsing

scour

sheet erosion

sluicing

soil erosion

sore

staining

violation

wash

🧽

wastage

wear down

breaking-off

anabrosis

sheetflood

sheetwash

coastal erosion

universal soil loss equation

usle

acid pickling

water scouring

solution phenomena

ablation

biting-in

consumption

corrode

decay

demolition

denudation

Translations

érosion

Erosion

erosión

erosão

erosione

erosió

erosie

διάβρωση

corrosión

corrosion

erozyon

Abtragung

إنجراف

تعْرِية

Pronounced as (IPA)

/əˈɹoʊʒən/

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."