remove
Pronunciation
  • IPA: /ɹɪˈmuːv/
Verb

remove (removes, present participle removing; past and past participle removed)

  1. (transitive) To move something from one place to another, especially to take away.
    He removed the marbles from the bag.
    • 1560, Geneva Bible, The Geneva Bible#page/n182 Deuteronomy 19:14 ↗:
      Thou ſhalt not remoue thy neighbours marke, which thei of olde time haue ſet in thine inheritance, that thou ſhalt inherit the lãd, which the Lord thy God giueth the to poſſeſſe it.
    1. (obsolete, formal) To replace a dish within a course.
  2. (transitive) To murder.
  3. (cricket, transitive) To dismiss a batsman.
  4. (transitive) To discard, set aside, especially something abstract (a thought, feeling, etc.).
    • 1590, Edmund Spenser, The Faerie Qveene. […], London: Printed [by John Wolfe] for VVilliam Ponsonbie, OCLC 960102938 ↗, book III, canto VIII, page 524 ↗:
      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 remoue.
  5. (intransitive, now, rare) To depart, leave.
    • 1485, Sir Thomas Malory, [http://quod.lib.umich.edu/c/cme/MaloryWks2/1:7.6?rgn=div2;view=fulltext chapter 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
  6. (intransitive) To change one's residence; to move.
    • c. 1606, William Shakespeare, “The Tragedie of Macbeth”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies: Published According to the True Originall Copies (First Folio), London: Printed by Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, OCLC 606515358 ↗, [Act V, scene iii]:
      Till Birnam wood remove to Dunsinane.
    • 1719, Daniel Defoe, Robinson Crusoe
      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 1987, p.20:
      Shortly after this, my father removed, and settled in the same county, about ten miles above Greenville.
    • Lim, Hiong Seng (1886) 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?
  7. To dismiss or discharge from office.
    The President removed many postmasters.
Synonyms Antonyms Translations Translations Translations Translations Noun

remove (plural removes)

  1. The act of removing something.
    • {{RQ:Milton Education|passage=This place should be at once both school and university, not needing a remove to any other house of scholarship.
    • And drags at each remove a lengthening chain.
  2. (archaic) Removing a dish at a meal in order to replace it with the next course, a dish thus replaced, or the replacement.
  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")
    • December 23, 1715, Joseph Addison, The Freeloader No. 1
  5. Distance in time or space; interval.
  6. (figurative, by extension) Emotional distance or indifference.
  7. (dated) 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.
  8. The act of resetting a horse's shoe.



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