eliminate

English

Etymology

From Latin ēlīminātus, past participle of ēlīmināre (“to turn out of doors, banish”), from ē (“out”) + līmen (“a threshold”), akin to līmes (“a boundary”); see English limit and limen.

Pronunciation

• (UK) IPA^(key): /ɪˈlɪm.ɪ.neɪt/
• (US) IPA^(key): /ɪˈlɪm.ɪ.neɪt/, /ɪˈlɪm.ə.neɪt/, /iˈlɪm.ɪ.neɪt/, /iˈlɪm.ə.neɪt/
• (weak vowel merger) IPA^(key): /əˈlɪm.ə.neɪt/
• (General Australian) IPA^(key): /əˈlɪm.ə.næɪt/

  • Audio (General Australian):

    (file)

Verb

eliminate (third-person singular simple present eliminates, present participle eliminating, simple past and past participle eliminated)

1. (transitive) To completely remove, get rid of, put an end to.

   Synonyms: abrogate, abolish; see also Thesaurus:destroy

   • 1949, Proceedings of the ... Consolidated Convention of the International Brotherhood of Boiler Makers, Iron Ship Builders, and Helpers of America, page 159:

     The air-handling equipment humidifies, dehumidifies, and distributes the correct amount of fresh air into every zone and eliminates all smoke, dust, and odors, with electric precipitrons.

   • 1977 June 13, Computerworld, volume 11, number 24, page 91:

     The real savings of OCR come from the elimination of redundant keyboardings of the same data; from eliminating multiple verification steps; from reducing the number of documents needed to complete a transaction; […]

   • 2002, Nikhilesh Dholakia, Wolfgang Fritz, Ruby Roy Dholakia, Global E-commerce and Online Marketing: Watching the Evolution:

     […] it should be possible to eliminate most of these mental "costs" by improving the e-shopping systems.

   • 2020 August 4, Jason Schreier, “Blizzard Employees Share Salaries With Each Other to Protest Wage Disparities”, in Time‎^[2]:

     Last year, the company eliminated hundreds of jobs and asked some of the remaining staff to take on the responsibilities of those who were let go.

2. (transitive, military) To render (a facility) unusable, to destroy it; to disable (a soldier), make them unable to fight (typically but not necessarily by killing)

   Synonym: neutralize

3. (transitive, slang) To kill (a person or animal).

   a ruthless mobster who eliminated his enemies

4. (transitive, intransitive, physiology) To excrete (waste products).

   Synonyms: see Thesaurus:urinate, Thesaurus:defecate

   • 2015, Ilona Rodan, Sarah Heath, editors, Feline Behavioral Health and Welfare, Elsevier Health Sciences, →ISBN, page 7:

     In one study, 65.8% of the cat owners relinquishing a cat thought that their cat eliminated outside the litter box or destroyed furniture to spite them.

5. (transitive) To exclude (from investigation or from further competition).

   Bill was eliminated as a suspect when the police interviewed witnesses.

   John was eliminated as a contestant when it was found he had gained, rather than lost, weight.

6. (accounting) To record amounts in a consolidation statement to remove the effects of inter-company transactions.

Hyponyms

• give the chop to
• give the boot to
• give the sack to
• give the walking papers to

Derived terms

• eliminatrix

Related terms

• eliminable
• eliminant
• elimination
• eliminative
• eliminator
• eliminatory

Translations

completely destroy

• Albanian: eliminoj (sq), asgjësoj (sq), zhduk (sq)
• Bulgarian: премахвам (bg) (premahvam), елиминирам (bg) (eliminiram)
• Catalan: eliminar (ca)
• Chinese:

  Mandarin: 消滅 / 消灭 (zh) (xiāomiè), 消除 (zh) (xiāochú), 根除 (zh) (gēnchú)

• Czech: odstranit (cs), eliminovat (cs)
• Finnish: hävittää (fi), tuhota (fi), hankkiutua eroon, eliminoida
• French: éliminer (fr)
• German: eliminieren (de), zerstören (de):
• Hungarian: kiküszöböl (hu), felszámol (hu), kiirt (hu), megsemmisít (hu)
• Interlingua: eliminar
• Irish: deireadh
• Italian: eliminare (it)
• Japanese: 除去する (ja) (jokyo-suru)
• Maori: whakamōtī
• Polish: likwidować (pl) impf, zlikwidować (pl) pf, eliminować (pl) impf, wyeliminować (pl) pf
• Portuguese: eliminar (pt)
• Russian: ликвиди́ровать (ru) impf or pf (likvidírovatʹ)
• Spanish: eliminar (es)
• Swedish: förgöra (sv), eliminera (sv)
• Ukrainian: ліквідувати (likviduvaty)

kill

• Albanian: asgjësoj (sq)
• Bulgarian: убивам (bg) (ubivam)
• Chinese:

  Mandarin: 抹殺 / 抹杀 (zh) (mǒshā), 除掉 (zh) (chúdiào), 殺 / 杀 (zh) (shā)

• Finnish: eliminoida, listiä (fi), nirhata (fi) (slang)
• French: tuer (fr)
• German: umbringen (de), eliminieren (de), beseitigen (de)
• Gothic: 𐌰𐍆𐌳𐌰𐌿𐌸𐌾𐌰𐌽 (afdauþjan)
• Greek: καθαρίζω (el) (katharízo), σκοτώνω (el) (skotóno)
• Italian: eliminare (it)
• Japanese: 抹殺する (ja) (massatsu-suru), 殺す (ja) (koro-su), 殺害する (ja) (satsugai-suru)
• Korean: 제거하다 (ko) (jegeohada)
• Russian: ликвиди́ровать (ru) impf or pf (likvidírovatʹ), уничтожа́ть (ru) impf (uničtožátʹ), уничто́жить (ru) pf (uničtóžitʹ)
• Spanish: matar (es)
• Turkish: temizlemek (tr)
• Ukrainian: ліквідувати (likviduvaty), знищити (znyščyty)

excrete

• Chinese:

  Mandarin: 排出 (zh) (páichū)

• Finnish: virtsata (fi) (urine), ulostaa (fi) (feces)
• French: please add this translation if you can

exclude (from investigation or from further competition) — see exclude

eliminate the effects of intercompany transactions in a consolidation statement

• Chinese:

  Mandarin: please add this translation if you can

• Finnish: eliminoida
• French: please add this translation if you can

Further reading

• “eliminate”, in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, Springfield, Mass.: G. & C. Merriam, 1913, →OCLC.
• “eliminate”, in The Century Dictionary […], New York, N.Y.: The Century Co., 1911, →OCLC.

Anagrams

• itameline

Italian

Etymology 1

Verb

eliminate

1. inflection of eliminare:
   1. second-person plural present indicative
   2. second-person plural imperative

Etymology 2

Participle

eliminate f pl

1. feminine plural of eliminato

Anagrams

• eliantemi

Latin

Verb

ēlīmināte

1. second-person plural present active imperative of ēlīminō

Spanish

Verb

eliminate

1. second-person singular voseo imperative of eliminar combined with te