effacement

Borrowed from French effacement.

effacement (countable and uncountable, plural effacements)

1. The act of expunging, of wiping out; expungement.
   • 1927, Ernest Bramah, Max Carrados Mysteries:

     Among the many very baffling inconsistencies of Shakespeare's life the outstanding mystery is surely this: that of all his prolific work […] not a line of manuscript is known to exist today. Nothing approaching this complete effacement can be paralleled in literary history […]

2. Withdrawal in order to make oneself inconspicuous; the making of oneself inconspicuous.
   • 2007, John Zerzan, Silence, page 3:

     Native Americans seem to have always placed great value on silence and direct experience, and in indigenous cultures in general, silence denotes respect and self-effacement.

3. (medicine) A shortening, or thinning, of the cervix before or during early labour.

• self-effacement

From effacer (“to erase”) +‎ -ment.

• IPA^(key): /e.fas.mɑ̃/

• Audio (France (Somain)):

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effacement m (plural effacements)

1. erasure (act of erasing)

• → English: effacement

• “effacement”, in Trésor de la langue française informatisé [Digitized Treasury of the French Language], 2012