erosion

See also: Erosion, érosion, and erosión

English

Effects of soil erosion.

Etymology

From Middle French erosion, from Latin ērōsiō (“eating away”), derived from ērōdō.

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

"Bounds are thus put to the erosion of the earth by water."

Pronunciation

• (General American) IPA^(key): /əˈɹoʊʒən/
• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /əˈɹəʊʒən/

• Audio (US)

  (file)

Noun

erosion (countable and uncountable, plural erosions)

1. (uncountable) The result of having been worn away or eroded, as by a glacier on rock or the sea on a cliff face.
   • 1995, Graham Linehan & al., "Good Luck, Father Ted", Father Ted Series 1, Episode 1, Channel Four:

     Father Ted: The cliffs were gone? How could they just disappear?
     Dougal: Erosion.

   • 2012 August 24, George Monbiot, Guardian Weekly, page 20:

     Even second-generation biofuels, made from crop wastes or wood, are an environmental disaster, either extending the cultivated area or removing the straw and stovers which protect the soil from erosion and keep carbon and nutrients in the ground.

2. (uncountable) The changing of a surface by mechanical action, friction, thermal expansion contraction, or impact.
3. (uncountable, figurative) The gradual loss of something as a result of an ongoing process.

   the erosion of a person's trust

   trademark erosion, caused by everyday use of the trademarked term

   • 2020 November 8, Si Xiang, “The U.S. Election Is a Battle Between Good and Evil”, in Minghui‎^[1]:

     No social system that isn’t built upon the belief to the divine, or morality and traditional values, can withstand the erosion and degeneration of humankind’s morality, including democracy.

4. (uncountable) Destruction by abrasive action of fluids.
5. (mathematics, image processing) One of two fundamental operations in morphological image processing from which all other morphological operations are derived.
6. (dentistry) Loss of tooth enamel due to non-bacteriogenic chemical processes.
7. (medicine) A shallow ulceration or lesion, usually involving skin or epithelial tissue.
8. (mathematics) In morphology, a basic operation (denoted ⊖); see Erosion (morphology).

Derived terms

• accelerated erosion
• erosional
• erosive
• phonetic erosion
• rill erosion
• sheet erosion
• splash erosion
• trademark erosion

 

Related terms

• erode

Translations

the result of having being eroded

• Armenian: please add this translation if you can
• Belarusian: эро́зія f (erózija)
• Bulgarian: ерозия f (erozija)
• Catalan: erosió (ca) f
• Chinese:

  Mandarin: 磨蝕／磨蚀 (zh) (móshí), 侵蝕／侵蚀 (zh) (qīnshí)

• Czech: eroze (cs) f
• Danish: erosion (da) c, afslidning c
• Dutch: erosie (nl)
• Finnish: eroosio (fi)
• French: érosion (fr) f
• Friulian: erosion f
• Georgian: ეროზია (erozia)
• German: Erosion (de) f
• Greek: αποσάθρωση (el) f (aposáthrosi)
• Hungarian: erózió (hu)
• Italian: erosione (it)
• Japanese: 浸食 (ja) (しんしょく, shinshoku)
• Kapampangan: banlik
• Kazakh: мүжілу (müjılu)
• Korean: 부식(腐蝕) (ko) (busik)
• Latvian: erozija f
• Macedonian: ерозија f (erozija)
• Norwegian:

  Bokmål: erosjon m

  Nynorsk: erosjon m

• Polish: erozja (pl) f
• Portuguese: erosão (pt) f
• Romanian: eroziune (ro)
• Russian: эро́зия (ru) f (erózija)
• Serbo-Croatian: erozija (sh) f, odron (sh) m, odronjenje n
• Slovak: erózia f
• Spanish: erosión (es) f
• Swedish: erosion (sv) c
• Tagalog: us-os
• Ukrainian: еро́зія f (erózija)
• Vietnamese: xói mòn

the changing of a surface by mechanical action

• Bulgarian: ерозия f (erozija)
• Catalan: erosió (ca) f
• Danish: erosion (da) c
• Esperanto: erozio
• Finnish: kuluminen (fi), eroosio (fi)
• French: érosion (fr) f
• German: Erosion (de) f
• Hungarian: erózió (hu)
• Irish: líomhadh m
• Latvian: erozija f
• Maori: ngāhorohoro
• Norwegian:

  Bokmål: erosjon m

  Nynorsk: erosjon m

• Polish: erozja (pl) f
• Portuguese: erosão (pt) f
• Romanian: eroziune (ro) f, erodare (ro) f
• Serbo-Croatian: erozija (sh) f
• Spanish: erosión (es) f
• Tagalog: sapudpod, pagkapudpod

destruction by abrasive action of fluids

• Bulgarian: разяждане (bg) n (razjaždane)
• Catalan: erosió (ca) f
• Danish: erosion (da) c
• Esperanto: erozio
• Finnish: eroosio (fi), syöpyminen (fi)
• French: érosion (fr) f
• German: Erosion (de) f
• Hungarian: erózió (hu)
• Norwegian:

  Bokmål: erosjon m

  Nynorsk: erosjon m

• Polish: erozja (pl) f
• Portuguese: erosão (pt) f
• Serbo-Croatian: erozija (sh) f
• Spanish: erosión (es) f

in dentistry

• Danish: erosion (da) c
• Dutch: tanderosie (nl)
• German: Erosion (de) f
• Norwegian:

  Bokmål: erosjon m

  Nynorsk: erosjon m

(medicine)

• French: érosion (fr) f
• Persian: اروزیون (eroziyon)
• Turkish: erozyon (tr)

Anagrams

• Reinoso

Basque

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /eɾos̺ion/ [e.ɾo.s̺i.õn]
• Rhymes: -ion
• Hyphenation: e‧ro‧si‧on

Verb

erosion

1. Informal second-person singular feminine (hik), taking third-person singular (hari) as indirect object and third-person singular (hura) as direct object, present imperative form of erosi (“to buy”).

Friulian

Noun

erosion f (plural erosions)

1. erosion

Interlingua

Noun

erosion (plural erosiones)

1. erosion (shallow lesion or ulceration)