The act or process of scraping away or removing a surface layer by scraping.
From Greek apoxesis, from apoxein 'to scrape off,' from apo- 'away' and xein 'to scrape'—related to the tool for scraping used in ancient athletics.
Ancient Greek athletes used a tool called a strigil for apoxesis—scraping off oil and sweat—creating a word that shows how the most mundane daily activities (cleaning) got technical names in classical languages!
Complete word intelligence in one call. Free tier — 50 lookups/day.