The act of erasing, deleting, or removing something completely, especially from a record or text. Complete elimination or obliteration of something.
From Latin expungere, meaning 'to prick out' or 'mark for deletion.' Roman editors would use dots or marks to indicate text to be removed. The 'punct' root relates to puncture and point, referring to the pricking marks used for deletion.
Think of 'expunction' as using a hole puncher on unwanted records - you're literally punching out what shouldn't be there! Legal expunction removes criminal records, just like a hole punch removes paper.
Complete word intelligence in one call. Free tier — 50 lookups/day.