Word.ws English Dictionary

expunging

expunging is the present participle and gerund of expunge.

Meaning of expunge

Verb

expunge (third-person singular simple present expunges, present participle expunging, simple past and past participle expunged)

  1. (transitive) To erase or strike out.
    • The gentleman from Texas [Mr. CRAIN] asks unanimous consent to expunge from the RECORD and from the Journal the motion to excuse the gentleman from Mississippi [Mr. ALLEN] […]1893, Congressional Record, page 1991
  2. (transitive) To eliminate completely; to annihilate.
  3. (transitive) To delete permanently (e-mail etc.) that was previously marked for deletion but still stored.

Noun

expunging (plural expungings)

  1. The act by which something is expunged; a deletion.
    • Neither do they seem to remember the many alterations, additions, and expungings made by great authors, in those treatises which they prepare for the publick.1720, Jonathan Swift, A Letter to a Young Clergyman

Forms of expunging

pluralexpungings

Questions about expunging

What does expunging mean?
Expunging means the act by which something is expunged; a deletion.
What is expunging the present participle and gerund of?
Expunging is the present participle and gerund of expunge.
What part of speech is expunging?
Expunging is a noun.
What is the plural of expunging?
The plural of expunging is expungings.

Words near expunging in the dictionary

  1. expunger
  2. expungers
  3. expunges
  4. expungeth
  5. expungible
  6. expunging
  7. expungings
  8. expurgate
  9. expurgated
  10. expurgates
  11. expurgating

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: expunging (page history and authors); expunge (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Cite this entry: “expunging.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/expunging. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.