Erosion

How to spell erosion

7 letters · 3 syllables

How to pronounce erosion

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does erosion mean?

1. nounThe gradual wearing away of land, rock, or soil by wind, water, or other natural forces.
2. nounA slow, steady reduction or weakening of something abstract, such as trust, value, or rights.

Erosion in a sentence

• Heavy rainfall accelerated the erosion of the riverbank.

• The scandal led to a steady erosion of public trust in the company.

• Farmers planted trees to slow the erosion of the topsoil.

• Inflation caused a gradual erosion of the family's savings.

Where does erosion come from?

Language of origin: Latin

The word comes from the Latin erosionem, the noun form of erodere, which meant 'to gnaw away' or 'to eat into'. That verb was built from the prefix e- (a reduced form of ex-, meaning 'away' or 'off') joined to rodere, 'to gnaw'. The same rodere root gnaws its way into other English words: a 'rodent' is literally a 'gnawing' animal, and something 'corrosive' eats away at metal. English took 'erosion' in through French in the sixteenth century, at first for the literal wearing or eating away of a surface, and later extended it to the gradual loss of soil, coastline, or even abstract things like rights and confidence. The spelling trap sits in the ending: because the root is ros (not the more familiar -tion words), the noun is spelled with an s, giving -sion rather than -tion.

How the word is built

• e- (from ex-, away)
• rod/ros (from rodere, to gnaw)
• -ion (noun of action)