▪ I. delete, v.
(dɪˈliːt)
Also 5–6 delyte, 6–7 Sc. deleit, dilate, 7 deleet(e, deleate, 7 Sc. pa. tense and pa. pple. deletted, delait: see next.
[f. L. dēlēt-, ppl. stem of dēlēre to blot out, efface.]
† 1. trans. To destroy, annihilate, abolish, eradicate, do away with. Obs.
(The first quot. is on various grounds uncertain.)
| 1495 Barth. De P.R. (W. de W.) iv. iii. 82 Drinesse dystroyeth bodyes that haue soules, so he dyssoluyth and delyteth the kynde naturall spyrytes that ben of mayst smoke. 1534 St. Papers Hen. VIII, II. 218 Stryke thaym..till they be consumed, and ther generation clene radycat and delytit of this worlde. 1545 Act 37 Hen. VIII, c. 17 §1 The Bishop of Rome..minding..to abolish, obscure and delete such Power. 1565 Satir. Poems Reform. i. 344 Where no redresse in tyme cold dilate The extreme wrong that Rigor had tought. 1656 Prynne Demurrer to Jews 69 Confederating..to murder and delete them. 1657 Tomlinson Renou's Disp. 215 It doth perfectly deleate the ulcers which infest the throat. 1851 Sir F. Palgrave Norm. & Eng. I. 43 Though Carthage was deleted. |
2. a. To strike or blot out, obliterate, erase, expunge (written or printed characters).
| a 1605 Montgomerie Misc. Poems I. 6 Sic tytillis in ȝour sanges deleit. 1637–50 Row Hist. Kirk (1842) 522 His Majestie deletted that clause. a 1657 Balfour Ann. Scot. (1824–5) II. 76 Her proces [was] ordained to be delait out of the recordes. 1667 Collins in Rigaud Corr. Sci. Men (1841) I. 127 Here the corrector took out more than I deleted. 1862 Beveridge Hist. India II. vi. iii. 641 The peerage would be granted if the censure were deleted. 1875 F. Hall in Nation XXI. 360/2 Here, to make either sense or metre, the and must be deleted. |
b. fig. To erase, expunge, ‘wipe out’.
| 1650 Fuller Pisgah iii. x. 340 Studiously deleting the character of that Sacrament out of their bodies. 1785 Reid Int. Powers iii. vii, So imprinted as not to be deleted by time. 1864 Morn. Star 12 Jan., Kagosima has been deleted from the list of cities, and there is an end of it. |
c. To remove (a gramophone record) from the catalogue and thus no longer offer it for sale.
| 1937 Gramophone Oct. 190/1 H.M.V. are wisely persevering with their policy of announcing in advance which records they intend to delete from the Connoisseur's catalogue. 1949 Ibid. Oct. 90/1 The first two Bartók quartets, long deleted, are now eagerly sought after by collectors. 1966 Melody Maker 7 May 12/1 These justly famous tracks make a surprise reappearance because it was only in April that EMI deleted them. |
3. pass. Cytology. Of a segment of a chromosome: to be lost from the chromosome. So deˈleted ppl. a. Cf. deletion 3.
| 1929 Painter & Muller in Jrnl. Heredity XX. 296/1 Drawings of the chromosomes have been presented..the deleted X being indicated as ‘X—’. 1936 Discovery Sept. 269/1 It is usually a section in the middle which disappears, or is ‘deleted’, the two ends joining up to make a shortened chromosome. 1957 C. P. Swanson Cytol. & Cytogenetics x. 368 At anaphase, the deleted portion is usually freed and does not undergo movement to one or the other of the poles. |
Hence deˈleting vbl. n., deletion.
| 1711 Countrey-Man's Lett. to Curat 6 They had the popish missal and breviary with some few Deletings. |
▪ II. † deˈlete, pa. pple. Obs.
Also 7 deleete, delate.
[ad. L. dēlēt-us blotted out, effaced, pa. pple. of dēlēre to delete.]
Deleted, abolished, destroyed.
| c 1555 Harpsfield Divorce Hen. VIII (1878) 87 His brother's memory was delete and abolished among the Jews. 1642 Declar. Lords & Com. to Gen. Ass. Ch. Scot. 13 An Obligation that cannot be delete. 1682 Lond. Gaz. No. 1682/1 His Arms to be..delate out of the Books of Arms. |