verb (used with object), e·rod·ed, e·rod·ing.
- to eat into or away; destroy by slow consumption or disintegration: Battery acid had eroded the engine. Inflation erodes the value of our money.
- to form (a gully, butte, or the like) by erosion.
verb (used without object), e·rod·ed, e·rod·ing.
- to become eroded.
verb
- to grind or wear down or away or become ground or worn down or away
- to deteriorate or cause to deterioratejealousy eroded the relationship
- (tr; usually passive) pathol to remove (tissue) by ulceration
1610s, a back-formation from erosion, or else from French éroder, from Latin erodere “to gnaw away, consume” (see erosion). Related: Eroded; eroding. Originally of acids, ulcers, etc.; geological sense is from 1830.
v.
- To wear away by or as if by abrasion.
- To eat into; ulcerate.