remove

See also: remové

English

Etymology

From Middle English removen, from Anglo-Norman remover, removeir, from Old French remouvoir, from Latin removēre, from re- + movēre (“to move”). Displaced native Old English āfierran.

Pronunciation
  • IPA(key): /ɹɪˈmuːv/
  • Audio (US)(file)
  • Audio (AU)(file)
  • Rhymes: -uːv

Verb

remove (third-person singular simple present removes, present participle removing, simple past and past participle removed)

  1. (transitive) To delete.
  2. (transitive) To move from one place to another, especially to take away.
    He removed the marbles from the bag.
    1. (obsolete, formal) To replace a dish within a course.
      • 1959, Georgette Heyer, chapter 1, in The Unknown Ajax:
        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 either.
  3. (transitive) To murder.
  4. (cricket, transitive) To dismiss a batsman.
  5. (transitive) To discard, set aside, especially something abstract (a thought, feeling, etc.).
  6. (intransitive, now rare) To depart, to leave; to move oneself or be moved.
    • 1485, Sir Thomas Malory, “vj”, in Le Morte Darthur, book V:
      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 / bydde hym make hym redy to bataylle and not distresse the poure peple
      (please add an English translation of this quotation)
    • 1855, Francis Kildale Robinson, A Glossary of Yorkshire Words and Phrases: Collected in Whitby and the Neighbourhood. With Examples of Their Colloquial Use, and Allusions to Local Customs and Trditions, page 129:
      […] 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 thereof.
  7. (intransitive, archaic) To change one's residence or place of business; to move.
    • c. 1606 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Tragedie of Macbeth”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act V, scene iii]:
      Till Birnam wood remove to Dunsinane.
    • 1719 May 6 (Gregorian calendar), [Daniel Defoe], The Life and Strange Surprizing Adventures of Robinson Crusoe, […], London: […] W[illiam] Taylor […], →OCLC:
      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.
    • 1834, David Crockett, A Narrative of the Life of, Nebraska, published 1987, page 20:
      Shortly after this, my father removed, and settled in the same county, about ten miles above Greenville.
    • 1886, Lim Hiong Seng, Handbook of the Swatow Vernacular, Singapore: Koh Yew Hean Press:
      I am going to remove. / Where are you going to remove to? / I don't know yet. / When will you know?
    • 1925, W. K. & Co., “How to Avoid a Controversy Over Fixtures Between Landlord and Tenant”, in American Independent Baker: Official Organ of the Retail Bakers, volume 23, page 20:
      About a year ago we removed to the above address, which we leased on a five-year lease with privilege of cancellation in one year.
  8. To dismiss or discharge from office.
    The President removed many postmasters.

Synonyms

Antonyms
  • (antonym(s) of “move something from one place to another”): settle, place, add

Derived terms

Translations
to delete — see delete
to dismiss or discharge from office — see dismiss,‎ discharge

Noun

remove (plural removes)

  1. The act of removing something.
  2. (cooking, now chiefly historical) A dish served to replace an earlier one during a meal; a part of a new course.
    • 1796, Mary Wollstonecraft, Letters Written in Sweden, Norway, and Denmark, Oxford, published 2009, page 16:
      A supper brings up the rear, not forgetting the introductory luncheon, almost equalling in removes the dinner.
    • 1842, [Katherine] Thomson, chapter XIII, in Widows and Widowers. A Romance of Real Life., volume I, London: Richard Bentley, […], →OCLC, page 289:
      An attempt at entrées and removes failed at the first dinner-party.
  3. (British) (at some public schools) A division of the school, especially the form prior to last
  4. A step or gradation (as in the phrase "at one remove")
    • 1716 January 3 (Gregorian calendar), Joseph Addison, “The Free-holder: No. 1. Friday, December 23. 1715.”, in The Works of the Right Honourable Joseph Addison, Esq; […], volume IV, London: […] Jacob Tonson, […], published 1721, →OCLC:
      A freeholder is but one remove from a legislator.
    • 1739, [David Hume], A Treatise of Human Nature: […], London: […] John Noon, […], →OCLC; republished as L[ewis] A[mherst] Selby-Bigge, editor, A Treatise of Human Nature […], Oxford, Oxfordshire: Clarendon Press, 1896, →OCLC, book I (Of the Understanding):
      That we may understand the full extent of these relations, we must consider, that two objects are connected together in the imagination, not only when the one is immediately resembling, contiguous to, or the cause of the other, but also when there is interposed betwixt them a third object, which bears to both of them any of these relations. This may be carried on to a great length; though at the same time we may observe, that each remove considerably weakens the relation.
    • 1822, Paul Brown, “Of the Degrees of Faith, according to probability, and force of impression”, in A Disquisition on Faith, Washington, D.C.: […] [F]or the Author[, b]y Andrew Way, page 24:
      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.
    • 2007, James D. McCallister, King's Highway, page 162:
      In his unfortunate absence at this far remove of 2007, Zevon's musicianship and irascible wit are as missed as ever.
  5. Distance in time or space; interval.
    • 1654, Richard Whitlock, Zootomia; Or, Observations on the Present Manners of the English:
      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 Inheritances, even once removed: but look on it more Removes off, and continuing in thy Name, yet how little doth that concerne Thee (though the first Purchaser, or his Heire) Lazy Posterity, when they heare it so called know it by the Name, but not as thine; […]
  6. (figurative, by extension) Emotional distance or indifference.
  7. (figurative, by extension) State of mind allowing for a certain degree of objectivity in evaluating things.
    • 2021 October 19, David Graeber, David Wengrowr, “Unfreezing the ice age: the truth about humanity’s deep past”, in The Guardian, UK:
      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 things, but as something at least partially open to human intervention.
  8. (dated) The transfer of one's home or business to another place; a move.
  9. The act of resetting a horse's shoe.

Derived terms

References
  • OED 2nd edition 1989
  • “remove”, in OneLook Dictionary Search.

Latin

Verb

removē

  1. second-person singular present active imperative of removeō

Portuguese

Pronunciation
  • Rhymes: -ɔvi

Verb

remove

  1. inflection of remover:
    1. third-person singular present indicative
    2. second-person singular imperative
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