remove

The act of removing something.

Noun

  1. The act of removing something.
    • This place should be at once both school and university, not needing a remove to any other house of scholarship. - [1644], [John Milton], Of Education. To Master Samuel Hartlib, [London]: […] [Thomas Underhill and/or...
    • And drags at each remove a lengthening chain. - 1764 December 19 (indicated as 1765), Oliver Goldsmith, The Traveller, or A Prospect of Society. A Poem. […], London: […] J[ohn] Newbery, […], →OCLC:
    • There is no tree admits of transplantation so well as the Elm, for a tree of twenty years growth will admit of a remove. - 1761, John Mordant, The Complete Steward:
  2. A dish served to replace an earlier one during a meal; a part of a new course.
    • A supper brings up the rear, not forgetting the introductory luncheon, almost equalling in removes the dinner. - 1796, Mary Wollstonecraft, Letters Written in Sweden, Norway, and Denmark, Oxford, published 2009, page 16:
    • An attempt at entrées and removes failed at the first dinner-party. - 1842, [Katherine] Thomson, chapter XIII, in Widows and Widowers. A Romance of Real Life., volume I, London: Richard Bentley, […], →OCLC, page 289:
  3. A division of the school, especially the form prior to last
  4. A step or gradation (as in the phrase "at one remove")
    • A freeholder is but one remove from a legislator. - 1716 January 2 (Gregorian calendar), Joseph Addison, “The Free-holder: No. 1. Thursday, December 23. 1715.”, in The Works of the Right Honourable Joseph Addison, Esq;...
    • That vve may underſtand the full extent of theſe relations, vve must conſider, that tvvo objects are connected together in the imagination, not only vvhen the one is immediately reſembling, contiguous to, or the cauſe...
    • Thus though this degree of faith is but one remove from disbelief, (denial) nevertheless as much probability is given to one side of the question as the other, and we stand, as it were, on an average between two. -...
  5. Distance in time or space; interval.
    • How many Masters have some stately Houses had, in the age of a small Cottage, that hath, as it were, lived, and dyed with her old Master, both dropping down together. Such vain Preservatories of us, are our...
  6. Emotional distance or indifference.
  7. State of mind allowing for a certain degree of objectivity in evaluating things.
    • The fact that one structure applied in the rainy season and another in the dry allowed Nambikwara chiefs to view their own social arrangements at one remove: to see them as not simply “given”, in the natural order of...
  8. The transfer of one's home or business to another place; a move.
    • It is an English proverb that three removes are as bad as a fire. - 1855, John Henry Newman, Callista:
  9. The act of resetting a horse's shoe.
    • His horse wanted two removes; your horse wanted nails - 1731 (date written; published 1745), [Jonathan] Swift, Directions to Servants […], London: […] R[obert] Dodsley, […], and M. Cooper, […], →OCLC:

Origin

Etymology tree Proto-Italic *wre- Proto-Indo-European *m(y)ewh₁-der. Proto-Italic *moweō Proto-Italic *wremoweō Latin removeō Old French removoir Anglo-Norman removerbor. Middle English removen English remove From Middle English removen, from Anglo-Norman remover, removeir, from Old French remouvoir, from Latin removēre, from re- + movēre (“to move”), equivalent to re- + move. Displaced native Old English āfierran.

Forms

removes

Derived

a far remove

Verb

  1. To delete.
  2. To move from one place to another, especially to take away.
    • He removed the marbles from the bag.
    • Thou ſhalt not remoue thy neghbours marke which they of olde tyme haue ſett in thyne enheritaunce that thou enheretteſt in the londe which the Lorde thy God geueth the to enioye it. - 1530 January 27 (Gregorian...
    • His first indication of coming events was to remove the key from the outside to the inside of the door. - 1914, Ernest Bramah, Max Carrados:

    1. (obsolete, formal) To replace a dish within a course.

      • But Richmond[…]appeared to lose himself in his own reflections. Some pickled crab, which he had not touched, had been removed with a damson pie; and his sister saw[…]that he had eaten no more than a spoonful of that...
  3. To murder.
  4. To dismiss a batsman.
  5. To discard, set aside, especially something abstract (a thought, feeling, etc.).
    • Eternall thraldom was to her more liefe, / Then loſſe of chaſtitie, or chaunge of loue : / Dye had ſhe rather in tormenting griefe, / Then any ſhould of falſeneſſe her reproue, / Or looſeneſſe, that ſhe lightly did...
    • The US supreme court has ruled unanimously that natural human genes cannot be patented, a decision that scientists and civil rights campaigners said removed a major barrier to patient care and medical innovation. - 2013...
  6. To depart, to leave; to move oneself or be moved.
    • THenne the kynge dyd doo calle syre Gawayne / syre Borce / syr Lyonel and syre Bedewere / and commaunded them to goo strayte to syre Lucius / and saye ye to hym that hastely he remeue oute of my land / And yf he wil not...
    • […] you shall set your stakes at the brim of the water, each a yard apart, and so yedder them with your yedders, and so stake them with your strut stowers, that they may stand three tides without removing by the force...
  7. To change one's residence or place of business; to move.
    • Till Birnam wood remove to Dunsinane. - c. 1606 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Tragedie of Macbeth”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard,...
    • Now my life began to be so easy that I began to say to myself that could I but have been safe from more savages, I cared not if I was never to remove from the place where I lived. - 1719 May 6 (Gregorian calendar),...
    • Shortly after this, my father removed, and settled in the same county, about ten miles above Greenville. - 1834, David Crockett, A Narrative of the Life of, Nebraska, published 1987, page 20:
  8. To dismiss or discharge from office.
    • The President removed many postmasters.

Forms

removes removing removed no-table-tags glossary remove removest removedst removeth -

Synonyms

unstay abate bate deduct knock off remove subduct subtract take take away take off

Antonyms

settle place add

Hypernyms

diminish split

Hyponyms

kick out unadd undress

Related

delete

Derived

boyremove removability removable removal removalist removeable remove kebab remover