as in to erase
to destroy all traces of
time and the weather have expunged any evidence that a thriving community once existed here
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Recent Examples of expunge
That inevitably puts some people at a disadvantage and makes getting a conviction record expunged even more important.
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Joanna Hernandez, San Diego Union-Tribune, 15 Oct. 2025
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth on Tuesday called for a sweeping overhaul of how the military handles allegations of hazing and other types of abuse, insisting that the military had grown too soft and promising to expunge the records of tough leaders with past infractions.
—Anne Flaherty, ABC News, 30 Sep. 2025
But those developments failed to expunge Washington’s enclave.
—Miriam Pensack, The Dial, 30 Sep. 2025
He was convicted and given probation — prosecutors asked for a nine-year prison term — and eventually got the conviction expunged, according to Rosen and court records.
—Robert Salonga, Mercury News, 19 Sep. 2025
See All Example Sentences for expunge
Recent Examples of Synonyms for expunge
Verb
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After an incredible 20 minutes last weekend that saw the Broncos erase a 24-point deficit at San Diego State to tie the game 79-79 in the final seconds, Andrews found the ball in his hands on the final possession of the game.—
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These services do all the work for you by actively monitoring and systematically erasing your personal information from hundreds of websites.—
Verb
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Spider mites create webs and can be eradicated with miticide spray.—
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Just last week, a professor who taught at Harvard for 40 years slammed the school for its ideological homogeneity after finishing his last semester, saying that graduate programs were denying White male applicants on racial grounds and that Western civilization courses were being eradicated.—
Verb
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The FairTax Act of 2025 was the latest bid to abolish the Internal Revenue Service and replace income tax and other levies with a national sales tax.—
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During his campaign, Mamdani pledged to keep the NYPD’s headcount flat, abolish the department’s controversial Strategic Response Group and get rid of its gang database — all proposals opposed by Tisch, who supports hiring more cops.—
Verb
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So, automation can be used to destroy labor or workers’ power, but it can also be used in the opposite direction.—
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Homes, businesses and synagogues were destroyed.—
Cite this Entry
“Expunge.” Merriam-Webster.com Thesaurus, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/thesaurus/expunge. Accessed 13 Jan. 2026.
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