Erosion Definition

ĭ-rōzhən
noun
The group of natural processes, including weathering, dissolution, abrasion, corrosion, and transportation, by which material is worn away from the earth's surface.
American Heritage
An eroding or being eroded.
Webster's New World

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

Wiktionary
The superficial destruction of a surface by friction, pressure, ulceration, or trauma.
American Heritage Medicine
(mathematics, image processing) One of two fundamental operations in morphological image processing from which all other morphological operations are derived.
Wiktionary

Other Word Forms of Erosion

Noun

Singular:
erosion
Plural:
erosions

Origin of Erosion

  • 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

    From Wiktionary

  • Latin ērōsiō ērōsiōn- an eating away from ērōsus eaten away erose

    From American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition

  • From Middle French erosion, from Latin erosio (“eating away”), derived from erodere.

    From Wiktionary

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