effacement

Borrowed from French effacement.

effacement (countable and uncountable, plural effacements)

1. The act of expunging, of wiping out; expungement.
2. Withdrawal in order to make oneself inconspicuous; the making of oneself inconspicuous.
   • 2007, John Zerzan, Silence, page 3:

     Native Americans seem to have always placed great value on silence and direct experience, and in indigenous cultures in general, silence denotes respect and self-effacement.

3. (medicine) A shortening, or thinning, of the cervix before or during early labour.

effacement m (plural effacements)

1. erasure (act of erasing)

• “effacement” in le Trésor de la langue française informatisé (The Digitized Treasury of the French Language).