Past tense of a rare or archaic verb meaning to gnaw or erode; to wear away gradually.
From a verb 'arrode' possibly related to Latin 'rodere' meaning to gnaw, with the prefix 'ar-' (from ad-). This is an extremely rare or obsolete form in modern English.
Though nearly extinct from English, 'arrode' survives in geological texts from the 1800s where writers described how water 'arroded' cliffs—it's a beautiful word for slow destruction that we mostly abandoned for the simpler 'eroded.'
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