A piece of rubber or similar material used to remove pencil marks from paper.
From Latin 'eradere' meaning 'to scrape out' or 'to scratch away,' combining 'e-' (out) + 'radere' (to scrape). The same root gave us 'razor' for scraping hair and 'abrasive' for scraping surfaces. Romans literally thought of erasing as scraping away wax from their writing tablets with a stylus.
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