erasure

1. The act or an instance of erasing.
2. The state of being erased: "The powerful images of his work . . . punishment, mutilation, erasure" (Joyce Carol Oates).

noun

The act of erasing or the condition of being erased: cancellation, deletion, expunction, obliteration. See include/exclude.

erasure, the placing of a concept under suspicion by marking the word for it as crossed (e.g. philosophy), in order to signal to readers that it is both unreliable and at the same time indispensable. The device of placing words sous rature (‘under erasure’) has sometimes been adopted in modern philosophy and criticism, notably in deconstruction.

In deconstructionist writing a word is used under erasure (French, sous rature) if it is necessary to use it, but it is only doubtfully intelligible. The device is akin to placing inverted commas around a word to show that its use is suspicious, e.g. Locke's concept of ‘substance’.

The noun has 3 meanings:

Meaning #1: a correction made by erasing

Meaning #2: a surface area where something has been erased

Meaning #3: deletion by an act of expunging or erasing
  Synonyms: expunction, expunging