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expungement

expungement

8.4
Complete removal of information from a document or record
  • noun
  • /ɪkˈspʌndʒmənt/
translation icon : expurgación
  • After the judge granted his expungement, the charges against him were erased from all official documents.

Examples

  • The lawyer filed for expungement to remove her client's criminal record from public access.

  • The emphasis in aggressive expungement thus was, and is, on the perpetrator's youth and inexperience, rather than on the reality of his crimes and his unabated criminal tendencies.

    Academic text (1998)
  • Many people seek expungement to have their past mistakes removed from their permanent records.

Synonyms

removal
vsexpungement
106 2.0

Taking something or someone away from a place

focuses on erasing from records or memory rather than physical relocation
elimination
vsexpungement
77 3.5

The act of removing something you do not need

is more specific, meaning full erasure from records or memory
eradication
vsexpungement
19 6.8

Complete removal of something unwanted

is narrower, referring specifically to erasing from records or memory
deletion
vsexpungement
8 4.2

A person removes words or parts of a text when editing

applies more widely to complete removal from records or memory
erasure
vsexpungement
3 5.9

The act of removing writing or information from a document

emphasizes total and permanent removal including memory, not just deletion
expunction
vsexpungement
  • Formal
9.9

Removing information from a record so it no longer appears

is the common term for the same complete erasure in records or memory
expunging
vsexpungement
8.2

Removing information completely from a record

refers to the completed formal act rather than the ongoing process

Antonyms

293 1.4

The act of putting one thing with another

65 3.7

Being part of a group, activity, or process

How Complete

obliteration
6 7.9
expungement
8.4
deletion
8 4.2
removal
106 2.0
omission
51 5.4

Surface Forms

expungement singular
expungements plural

Morphology

expungement = expunge (transparent) = expunge + ment

A regular nominalization: the noun denotes the act or result of expunging and is directly derived from the verb plus '-ment'.

Etymology

Expungement comes from the parts ex- 'out' and pungere 'to prick', so it once meant to 'prick out' or mark something off a page, like crossing out a line; you can see the same root in puncture 'to make a small hole'. So expungement now means completely erasing or removing something from a document, record, or memory.