Other forms: deleted, deleting, deletes
To delete is to remove something written or stored. Delete the file, delete a line, permanently delete.
On most computers it does not erase anything at once: the space is merely marked as free, which is why deleted files can often be recovered and why properly wiping a disk is a separate job. The Latin means to blot out.
1verbdeleteTo remove something written or stored.
“I accidentally deleted all the photos from my holiday.”
delete is a removing.
Latin delere means to blot out or destroy, probably from a verb meaning to smear over.
Proto-Indo-European
*h₂leyH-
Latin
dēlētus
English, today
delete
Built from
From Latin dēlētus, past participle of dēlēre (“destroy, blot out, efface”), from dēlēvī, originally perf. tense of dēlinere (“to daub, erase by smudging”), from dē- (“from, away”) + linere (“to smear, wipe”). Original sense first appears c. 1495. In common use for ordering the absence of features of products (such as automobiles) in the 1960s. The computing sense, including the noun form, first appears c. 1977 in Software: Practice & Experience. Not related to deleterious. a doublet of delible and deleble.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA