obliviate

Etymology

Formed from oblivion and -ate (a verb-forming suffix). Oblivion itself comes either from Old French oblivion (13th century) or directly from Latin oblīviō, ultimately from oblīvīscor (“to forget”), which originally meant “even out, smooth over, erase”; this may further come from ob- (“against, towards”) plus the root of lēvis (“smooth”) and -scor (a suffix forming inchoative verbs).