Eliminating

How to spell eliminating

11 letters · 5 syllables

How to pronounce eliminating

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does eliminating mean?

1. verbCompletely removing or getting rid of something, or excluding someone from a contest or process.

Eliminating in a sentence

• The new software is good at eliminating duplicate entries from the database.

• The coach focused on eliminating careless mistakes before the final match.

Where does eliminating come from?

Language of origin: Latin

This word traces back to the Latin verb eliminare, which literally meant 'to put out of doors' or 'to drive across the threshold'. It was formed from ex-, meaning 'out', and limen, meaning 'threshold' or 'doorstep', the very same root that gives us 'preliminary' (something done before crossing the threshold) and 'subliminal' (below the threshold of awareness). English adopted 'eliminate' in the late 1500s, at first keeping the original physical sense of expelling or turning someone out, before it broadened to the modern meaning of removing or getting rid of something entirely. The form 'eliminating' is simply the present participle, built by adding -ing to the verb stem. A useful spelling reminder lives in the root itself: the hidden word is 'limin' (from limen), so the tricky middle vowel is an i, not an a, giving e-LIMIN-ating.

How the word is built

• e- (variant of ex-: out)
• limin (from Latin limen: threshold)
• -ate (verb)
• -ing (present participle)