Meaning of delete in English:

delete

Pronunciation /dɪˈliːt/

See synonyms for delete

Translate delete into Spanish

verb

[with object]

1Remove or obliterate (written or printed matter), especially by drawing a line through it.
‘the passage was deleted’
- ‘But once the dogs of war started howling he deleted the fine print.’
- ‘The pharmacy deleted an important ingredient in your blood pressure management when it made this switch.’
- ‘I vote that the second half of the film be deleted, re-written, and re-filmed to completely focus on the time spent on The Farm.’
- ‘With items such as the sauces, he is more than willing to include or delete ingredients, as he says that everything is made fresh to order.’
- ‘For the last time, I'm a (expletive deleted) veteran.’
- ‘There's also deleted scenes, trailers, costume design artwork, the lot.’
- ‘I'm your dream man/woman (delete as applicable).’
- ‘The paragraph referring to the incident has now been deleted in its entirety.’
- ‘Government operates best when there are no secrets… I would urge that Section 15 be deleted in its entirety.’
- ‘The passage I have highlighted is that which was deleted by amendment with effect from 31st January 2001.’
- ‘Since year was not significant in either model, it was deleted from subsequent analysis.’
- ‘Cows with valid genotypes for fewer than three markers were deleted from the analysis.’
- ‘‘His name should have been deleted from the list,’ the chairman said yesterday.’
- ‘He's the computer genius behind control alt delete.’
remove, cut out, take out, edit out, expunge, excise, eradicate, cancel, unpublish
View synonyms
1. 1.1Remove (data) from a computer's memory.
  ‘any program in memory will be deleted before the new one is loaded’
  ‘Users are advised to update their antivirus software and delete any suspicious emails without opening them.’
  ‘In many cases, criminals think that they can permanently delete information from their computers by hitting Delete on the keyboard.’
  ‘Remove software by deleting them from the Program Files folder.’
  ‘The system must be capable of adding or deleting storage or computing resources, as needed, using front-end software tools.’
  ‘Earlier this week, we wrote about a lawsuit between two spyware companies, after one got upset that the other was deleting its software when both were installed on the same computer.’
  ‘A memory leak occurs when memory is allocated and not freed after use, or when the pointer to a memory allocation is deleted, rendering the memory no longer usable.’
  ‘For example, a Web site can be removed simply by a system administrator deleting a Web address from a list.’
  ‘In a normal linked list, you remove a node to delete the data it's holding.’
  ‘You record all your songs to flash memory adding or deleting selections as often as you like.’
  ‘It is also advising on its website that anyone who receives this email should delete it.’
  ‘I was deleting excessive writing on computer, and then I by accidentally deleted this chapter off the site, so I had to rewrite it.’
  ‘Computers do not destroy data when a user deletes it, therefore leaving evidence for investigators to locate.’
  ‘Ultimately, the inquiry reported that at least 500 files that might have proved relevant to its investigation had been deleted from government computers.’
  ‘The game is downloaded into a phone's memory and deleted when a player has completed the game.’
  ‘Memory module prices were quite high and you needed a computer to add or delete music.’
  ‘Who said you had to spend your life deleting unwanted e-mail?’
  ‘They can be easily removed by deleting them in your browser settings.’
  ‘Why not ask me why I keep deleting your emails instead of continuing to send them?’
  ‘If the audit process reveals unlicensed software, we will only recommend that a company either pays for the appropriate licenses or deletes the software.’
  ‘I immediately deleted the jpeg and am worried that my PC is now infected.’
2. 1.2Remove (a product, especially a recording) from the catalogue of those available for purchase.
  ‘their EMI release has already been deleted’
  ‘If none of these options is considered feasible, the company must decide how best to delete the product.’
  ‘Serious about their decision to leave the music business, the band deleted their back catalogue, which meant that after the existing records were sold no more would be pressed.’
  ‘Then they deleted their entire back catalogue.’
  ‘The single was only previously available on Vinyl on Japanese import and had long been deleted, plus the recording company went bust.’
  ‘The group says most of the sections it disagreed with were either deleted or scaled back.’
  ‘The IHI list of medications is provided as a beginning framework, and health care organizations can add or delete medications from the list.’
  ‘Our hotel and restaurant industry should be kind enough to delete bottled water from its menu of profit making food and beverage items.’
3. 1.3be deletedGenetics (of a section of genetic code, or its product) be lost or excised from a nucleic acid or protein sequence.
  ‘if one important gene is deleted from an animal's DNA, other genes can stand in’
  ‘In this process new genes are created by repeated gene duplications, and some genes may later become pseudogenes or even be deleted from the genome.’
  ‘This may be related to the large size of the chromosomal DNA to be deleted, to polymorphism at this locus, or to specific effects of the donor DNA.’
  ‘As reported previously, at each insertion site some chromosomal DNA was deleted, most likely in conjunction with the integration event.’
  ‘A total of 542 genes that are potentially deleted in the Kas genome were also identified.’
  ‘Lack of extrusion of the palindrome may explain why it was not deleted from the chromosomal locus during growth of the recombinants.’

noun

A command or key on a computer which erases text.
‘you can use delete to remove a number of lines from your program’
- ‘I accidentally hit the tiny delete key instead of backspace.’
- ‘Because a CD-ROM is static, there will never be a delete or update.’
- ‘Great, but won't people have to have phones which can accept delete commands?’
- ‘Next, I hit the delete button to remove the email.’
- ‘Pressing the delete button gives you control over your life.’
- ‘Yes - even the placement of the delete function is, when viewed in context, diabolical.’
- ‘Most times we reach straight for the delete key; that's what it's there for.’
- ‘However, this morning the number key containing the dollar sign stopped working, followed by the delete key and the return key.’
- ‘So if you do receive the email, hit the delete button rather than passing it on to friends.’
- ‘However I belatedly spotted a familiar name when doing a mass delete and managed to pull this one out of the group earmarked for deletion.’
- ‘Plus, I reckon it also takes more time to carry real junk mail to the rubbish and deposit it than it does to hit the delete key.’
- ‘However I am about to change jobs and pressing the delete button a thousand times on my PC at work has been most cathartic.’
- ‘Hit the delete key and make up something innocuous.’
- ‘I had to wonder - in the millisecond before I hit the delete button - who had sent them and from where and why.’
- ‘He therewith began counting down from five, and on each digit, descended his index finger closer to the delete button.’
- ‘In that old journalistic tradition, I make my excuses and leave - or do the technological equivalent and press the delete button.’
- ‘She types a word, decides against it, and presses down the delete button.’
- ‘In fact if the e-mail says that - you're safe to just hit delete.’
- ‘You can't just hit delete, you have to rip the pages or white out the text.’
- ‘Remembering is delegated to the hard drive; if something unpleasant happens, we press delete.’