eliminaba

Eliminaba is the imperfect indicative form of the Spanish verb eliminar, which means to remove, eliminate, or erase. As a form, eliminaba corresponds to both yo eliminaba (I was eliminating / I used to eliminate) and él/ella/usted eliminaba (he/she/you were eliminating / used to eliminate). The imperfect tense expresses ongoing actions in the past, habitual actions, or background information.

Etymology: eliminar derives from Latin eliminare, from ex- “out” plus limen “threshold,” originally meaning to banish or remove from the threshold; the sense broadened to remove in general.

Usage: The form appears in narrative and descriptive text to indicate past operations of removing, excluding, or suppressing elements. In data processing or mathematics, it can describe a process of removing variables or terms. The imperfect can also set background context in a past scene, or describe repeated past actions.

Examples: Yo eliminaba los duplicados de la lista. (I was removing the duplicates from the list.) Él eliminaba obstáculos en su camino. (He was removing obstacles in his path.) En un contexto académico, se puede decir: eliminaba las incongruencias de la hipótesis. (one might say: I eliminated the inconsistencies of the hypothesis.)