Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • noun The process of wearing down or rubbing away by means of friction.
  • noun A scraped or worn area.
  • noun A scraped area on the skin or on a mucous membrane, resulting from injury or irritation.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun The act of abrading; the act of wearing or rubbing off or away by friction or attrition.
  • noun The result of rubbing or abrading; an abraded spot or place: applied chiefly to a fretting or excoriation of the skin by which the underlying tissues are exposed. In pathology, a superficial excoriation of the mucous membrane of the intestines, accompanied by loss of substance in the form of small shreds. The substance worn away by abrading or attrition.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • noun The act of abrading, wearing, or rubbing off; the wearing away by friction.
  • noun The substance rubbed off.
  • noun (Med.) A superficial excoriation, with loss of substance under the form of small shreds.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun dentistry The wearing away of the surface of the tooth by chewing.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • noun an abraded area where the skin is torn or worn off
  • noun erosion by friction
  • noun the wearing down of rock particles by friction due to water or wind or ice

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[Medieval Latin abrāsiō, abrāsiōn-, from Latin abrāsus, past participle of abrādere, to scrape off; see abrade.]

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