To scratch or scrape away the surface of something, especially in heraldry when a charge is erased or removed.
From Old French 'araser' meaning to scrape or erase, from 'a-' (to) + 'raser' (to scrape), from Latin 'radere' (to scratch). The meaning evolved from physical scraping to heraldic terminology.
In medieval heraldry, when knights wanted to dishonor someone by removing their coat of arms from a document, they didn't just cross it out—they literally scraped it away with a blade, creating the term 'arrace.' It's one of the few words where the physical action became a formal legal procedure.
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