erosion

Definition

The result of having been worn away or eroded, as by a glacier on rock or the sea on a cliff face.

Etymology

From Middle French erosion, from Latin ērōsiō (“eating away”), derived from ērōdō. The first known occurrence in English was in the 1541 translation by Robert Copland of Guy de Chauliac's medical text The Questyonary of Cyrurygens. Copland used erosion to describe how ulcers developed in the mouth. By 1774 erosion was used outside medical subjects. Oliver Goldsmith employed the term in the more contemporary geological context, in his book Natural History, with the quote : "Bounds are thus put to the erosion of the earth by water."

Example Sentences

• "Father Ted: The cliffs were gone? How could they just disappear? Dougal: Erosion."
• "Even second-generation biofuels, made from crop wastes or wood, are an environmental disaster, either extending the cultivated area or removing the straw and stovers which protect the soil from erosion and keep carbon and nutrients in the ground."
• "the erosion of a person's trust"

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