Removal

How to spell removal

7 letters · 3 syllables

How to pronounce removal

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does removal mean?

1. nounThe act of taking something away or getting rid of it.
2. nounThe transporting of a household's furniture and belongings to a new home.

Removal in a sentence

• The dentist recommended the removal of the damaged tooth.

• They hired a removal firm to pack the whole house.

• The council charged a fee for the removal of garden waste.

• The removal van arrived early on the morning of the move.

Where does removal come from?

Language of origin: Latin

Removal is built on the verb 'remove' plus the noun-forming suffix '-al'. 'Remove' came into English in the 1300s through Old French 'remouvoir', which descended from the Latin 'removere', a compound of 're-' meaning 'back' or 'away' and 'movere' meaning 'to move'. So at its literal root the word simply means 'a moving away'. The same 'movere' root sits inside a whole family of familiar English words such as 'motion', 'motor', 'mobile' and 'promote', which is a handy reminder that the middle of removal is just 'move' with its silent 'e' dropped before the suffix. The British use of removal to mean the business of shifting a household's belongings to a new home grew out of this same idea of moving things from one place to another, and dates from the nineteenth century.

How the word is built

• re- (back, away)
• mov (from Latin movere: to move)
• -al (noun-forming suffix)