delete

verb

de·​lete di-ˈlēt 

dē-

deleted; deleting

transitive verb

: to eliminate especially by blotting out, cutting out, or erasing

delete a passage in a manuscript

delete a computer file

The email was accidentally deleted.

deletable

di-ˈlē-tə-bəl 

dē-

adjective

an easily deletable photo

Synonyms

• cancel
• erase
• remove
• censor

Examples of delete in a Sentence

Delete this name from the list.

When the movie was shown on TV all the swearwords had been deleted.

Recent Examples on the Web

Not only does cloud storage occupy less space, but it cannot be physically destroyed and rendered useless like physical hard drives without a user explicitly deleting information. —Chongwei Chen, Forbes.com, 19 Sep. 2025

The Reddit post scored more than 15,000 upvotes within two days before the user deleted her throwaway account. —Thomas Westerholm, MSNBC Newsweek, 18 Sep. 2025

Both comments by Killer Mike and Curry were later deleted, with the pair presumably hashing things out behind the scenes. —Preezy Brown, VIBE.com, 18 Sep. 2025

The lawsuit is asking for the cameras to be disabled and all data on the plaintiffs deleted. —Kevin Collier, NBC news, 18 Sep. 2025

Word History

Etymology

Latin deletus, past participle of delēre to wipe out, destroy

First Known Use

1540, in the meaning defined above

Phrases Containing delete

• delete key

Rhymes for delete

• amit
• athlete
• backseat
• blackfeet
• broadsheet
• browbeat
• buckwheat
• compete
• compleat
• complete
• conceit
• concrete

Kids Definition

delete

verb

de·​lete di-ˈlēt 

deleted; deleting

: to eliminate especially by blotting out, cutting out, or erasing

delete a part of the story

delete a computer file

deletion

di-ˈlē-shən

noun