rasure

/ˈɹeɪʒə/

Etymology

From Middle English rasure, from Anglo-Norman rasure, Middle French rasure, from Latin rāsūra (“scraping, shaving”), from the participle stem of rādō (“to scrape, shave”).

rasure means scraping the surface of a parchment etc. in order to erase something from the document; erasure, more generally. Lexicurio rates it Sui generis — a strength score of 87 out of 100.

Why this word is great

RASURE — [Noun] The act of scraping or shaving a surface, especially of parchment or vellum, to erase writing; more broadly, any obliteration or the ceremonial shaving of the head. From Middle English rasure, from Anglo-Norman and Middle French rasure, from Latin rāsūra ("a scraping, shaving"), from rādere ("to scrape, shave"). Unlike "erasure," which suggests a clean vanishing, or "deletion," an abstract cancellation, rasure is a violent, physical undoing. It is the monk's knife lifting ink from lambskin, the cold shears passing over a penitent's scalp, the wind-scoured cliff yielding fossils to weather—a testament that nothing is ever truly written over, only worn down to a memory of texture.

noun

Scraping the surface of a parchment etc. in order to erase something from the document; erasure, more generally.
Obliteration, destruction.
Shaving the head, or an instance of this; a tonsure.